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BALKAN PROBLEMS AND 
EUROPEAN PEACE 



BALKAN PROBLEMS 
^^^ EUROPEAN PEACE 



BY 

NOEL BUXTON 

AND 

C. LEONARD LEESE 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 

1919 






THAHSFER 

FEB 20 1945 

Serial Record EH vision 
Tbei.lbrary of Coogrest 

Copy. — ..^..^„, 



{All rights reserved) 



" v: 



172U9:^> 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
THE BALKANS BEFORE THE WAR 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE ORIGINS OF THE BALKAN NATIONS . .II 

II. THE BALKAN NATIONS AND EUROPEAN POLITICS . I9 

III. THE BALKAN PEOPLES TO-DAY . . . .43 

PART II 
THE BALKAN NATIONS DURING THE WAR 

IV. THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES . . . .57 
V. THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION . . . .7$ 

VI. THE RESULTS OF " MUDDLING THROUGH " . .96 

PART III 
THE BALKANS AND THE FUTURE 

VII. THE TERRITORIAL ASPECT OF A LASTING SETTLE- 
MENT . . . . . . .109 

VIII. THE BALKANS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS . I20 

IX. CONCLUSION . . . . . .127 

INDEX 133 



With the kind permission of the Editor 
of the Nineteenth Century y portions of an 
article published in that review are incor- 
porated in Chapters V and VI. 



PART I 
THE BALKANS BEFORE THE WAR 



CHAPTER I 

THE ORIGINS OF THE BALKAN 
NATIONS 

The importance of the Balkan Peninsula in 
world politics is determined primarily by its 
geographical position. At the Bosphorus and 
the Dardanelles only a few hundred yards of 
water separate Europe from Asia. On the 
Asiatic side feasible routes give access to 
all parts of the Middle East, and the Isthmus 
of Suez presents no obstacle to communication 
with yet another of the great land masses 
of the earth. On the European side several 
practicable routes lead into the Danube valley, 
from which other parts of Western Europe 
may be reached without much difficulty. In 
addition, the Peninsula lies on the route from 
the Black Sea caravan termini to the Mediter- 
ranean ports. This commanding position in 
relation to Europe, Asia, and Africa has given 
the Balkan Peninsula in all ages a political 
and economic value which can best be indi- 
cated by the blood and treasure expended 

for its possession. 

11 



12 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

Remains dating from ages before men had 
learnt to record their deeds in words reveal 
to archaeological research the same cycle of 
invasion and settlement and then again inva- 
sion, which is familiar — or perhaps only half 
familiar — to us as the course of events in 
the Balkans during historical times. Succes- 
sive waves of barbarian immigration and 
imperial conquests and colonizing have left 
a population far exceeding any other in the 
complexity and variety of its stock. Yet in 
addition to those whose part in Balkan history 
can still be read in the languages and even in 
the faces of its present inhabitants, there have 
been at least an equal number of incursions 
which have left no permanent trace behind 
them. Goths and Vandals, Huns and Avars, 
swept over the Peninsula during the Volker- 
wanderung, but their occupation was too 
transitory to bear any permanent effects. 
It is not from these, but from the subject 
and the governing peoples of Hellenic civiliza- 
tion, from the colonizing of Imperial Rome, 
from a series of Slavonic invasions, and from 
the Turks, that the existing population 
descends. 

The last of the peoples of the Peninsula 
to gain political independence — the Albanians 



ORIGINS OF THE BALKAN NATIONS 13 

— are the most ancient of its inhabitants, for 
they are the direct descendants of the primitive 
Illyrian population which dwelt there before 
2000 B.C. They were pushed back by later 
comers into the mountainous districts of the 
west, but there successfully defied Greek and 
Roman, Slav and Turk. Isolated but uncon- 
quered, they least among the Balkan peoples 
have experienced the dubious benefits and 
indubitable evils of '* civilization/' Apart 
from the exploits of Scanderbeg against the 
Turks, the role they have played in Balkan 
history has been of minor importance, and 
even their existence as a political entity is 
due much more to European jealousies than 
to their own nationalist aspirations. 

The modern Greeks are descended from 
tribes which migrated from Asia Minor in 
prehistoric times. After a prolonged period 
of growth and maturity, the Greeks were 
subjugated by the Romans, but Hellenic 
culture conquered the whole of the Ancient 
World. Later, throughout the Middle Ages, 
the Greek Empire of Byzantium remained 
the chief bulwark of Europe against the 
Asiatic hordes. 

The Rumanian nation is perhaps the 
greatest monument to the might of Imperial 
Rome. The colonizing of the region from 



14 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

the valley of the Dniester to the basin of 
the Theiss, its occupation by legionaries and 
civil administrators, and their intermarriage 
with the natives, brought about a complete 
Romanization of the provinces both in language 
and in customs. During the series of bar- 
barian invasions which followed the with- 
drawal of the Roman troops at the end of 
the third century, the Latinized population 
found refuge from Slav and Tatar in the 
fastnesses of the Transylvanian Alps. Thus 
the Dacians of the Roman Empire both 
acquired and preserved the bare elements of 
a national consciousness definitely Latin in 
character. Their history during the Dark 
Ages is obscure, but about the beginning of the 
fourteenth century two principalities, Wallachia 
and Moldavia, emerged and maintained a 
precarious existence against the Magyars. 
Thanks to the superior attractions of the 
middle and upper Danube, they escaped the 
full force of the Turkish onslaught, and 
survived to become the nuclei of modern 
Rumania. 

The immigration of Slavonic tribes into 
the Balkans began in the third century a.d., 
but did not reach its greatest proportions till 
much later. By the seventh century the 
new-comers had occupied the whole of the 



ORIGINS OF THE BALKAN NATIONS 15 

Peninsula, with the exception of the moun- 
tainous region of the west, where the Alba- 
nians held out, and the coastal lowlands 
which remained predominantly Greek. Early 
in the eighth century a Turanian people, 
coming from the Volga basin, penetrated into 
the Balkans and subjugated the Slav inhabit- 
ants of Moesia and Thrace. In a compara- 
tively short time, however, these Bulgarians 
were themselves assimilated by the con- 
quered population and completely '' Slavized.'' 
From the end of the ninth century to the 
middle of the fifteenth, Balkan history is 
a record of successive Slav " empires,'' now- 
Bulgarian, now Serbian, and of their struggles 
with each other and with Byzantium. The 
first Bulgarian Empire, founded by Simeon 
(893-927), stretched from the Black Sea to 
the Adriatic, but within a century was over- 
come by the Byzantine Emperors, John 
Zimisces and Basil II. After an eclipse of 
a century and a half a Bulgarian State again 
emerged into independence about 1186, and 
under Ivan Asen II (1218-1241) once more 
included the greater part of the Peninsula. 

The Serbs, however, who had first obtained 
unity during the latter part of the twelfth 
century, gained strength under a series of 
able rulers ; and the weakness of the Latin 



16 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

Empire founded in 1204 as a result of the 
Fourth Crusade, and of the Greek Empire 
re-estabhshed by Michael Paleologus in 1261, 
left the hegemony of the Balkans to be dis- 
puted by the two Slavonic Powers. The 
crushing victory of the Serbians at Velbuzhd 
in 1330 placed the issue beyond doubt, and 
under Stephen Dushan (1336-1356) mediaeval 
Serbia reached its greatest extent. The heart 
of Stephen's kingdom was that group of 
upland plains around Uskub and Kossovo 
which are still called " Old Serbia." Uskub 
itself was his capital, and his dominions 
included all, and more than all, the pre-war 
(1914) areas of Serbia and Montenegro, while 
he exercised suzerainty over Bulgaria and 
the rest of the Balkans up to the gates of 
Constantinople. But Serbia's development 
was cut short by the advance of the Turks, 
who shattered the hastily collected force of 
the Serbs at Kossovo in 1389, and captured 
the Bulgarian capital Trnovo four years later. 
The conquest of the Peninsula was completed 
by Mohammed II (1451-1487). 

The downfall of the Byzantine Empire and 
the Balkan States brought the Turks into 
direct contact with Western Europe, which 
awoke to find its civiUzation threatened with 
extermination as it had not been since the 



ORIGINS OF THE BALKAN NATIONS 17 

days of Leo the Isaurian and Karl MarteL 
The burden of defence fell almost entirely on 
the Habsburg Empire, For two hundred 
years the struggle was waged on the plains 
of Hungary, and it was not till the Turks 
were beaten back from the walls of Vienna 
in 1683 that victory turned definitely against 
them. 

Henceforward two factors of importance 
which are inextricably entangled determine 
the course of Balkan history. On the one 
hand, the Peninsula is brought into the field 
of European politics and becomes the focus 
of the age-long conflict of Teuton and Slav 
represented by the empires of Austria-Hungary 
and Russia. On the other hand, the oppressed 
Christian populations awaken to national 
self-consciousness and begin an epic struggle 
for political independence of which even the 
Great War is not the final act. This latter 
development is really a new factor. The 
mediaeval '' empires " of Bulgaria and Serbia 
were not in any true sense Nation States, but 
rather despotisms founded on the military suc- 
cesses of the various dynasties. Nevertheless, 
their influence was, and still is, of enormous 
importance in crystallizing nationalist aspi- 
rations. At the same time these mediaeval 
traditions have been the curse of the nationalist 

2 



18 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

movement. The fact that at one period or 
another Greeks and Romans, Serbs and Bul- 
garians, have been the rulers of the greater 
part of the Peninsula, has tempted each to 
aim at the revival of its ancient dominion in 
disregard of ethnographical principles. 



CHAPTER II 

THE BALKAN NATIONS AND EUROPEAN 
POLITICS 

The policies of Austria-Hungary and Russia 
in the Balkans have been mainly dictated 
by a similar consideration— both suffer from 
inadequate access to the open sea. The desire 
to reach the ^Egean inspired Russia from the 
reign of Catherine the Great. Austria's need 
did not become acute until Italy obtained 
national unity and began to threaten her 
Adriatic supremacy ; thus, it was not until 
the second half of the nineteenth century 
that the Habsburgs were sufficiently free from 
their entanglements in Western Europe to 
cast their eyes beyond the Iron Gates in the 
direction of Salonika. 

Early in the nineteenth century insurrec- 
tionary movements among Greeks and Serbs 
were encouraged by Russia, and led to sangui- 
nary repression. Finding that the risings were 
not likely to lead to Russian aggrandizement, 
the Tsar abandoned them until a more pro- 

19 



20 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

pitious moment ; but the thirst for Hberty 
had been roused, and after the destruction 
of the Turkish Fleet at Navarino in 1827 
Greece gained her independence. Shortly 
afterwards, Serbia was recognized as an 
independent principality. Modern Rumania 
dates from the union of Wallachia and 
Moldavia, which took place in 1861. 

The history of the liberation of Bulgaria 
is more familiar to English minds. It began 
with a literary and educational renaissance, 
and took political shape over the question of 
religious independence. The Bulgarians were 
orthodox, but in mediaeval times their Church 
had enjoyed a measure of independence under 
the Greek patriarchate which had lasted till 
1767. The Greek Church had hitherto been 
the only one recognized by the Turks, who 
included all their orthodox subjects, whatever 
their nationality, under the term Roum- 
mileti. After the recognition of Greek inde- 
pendence, Greek nationalism became a danger 
to the Ottoman Empire, and the patriarchate 
lost favour with the Turks, who reversed their 
previous policy and began to take advantage 
of the discord which always existed, either 
openly or latently, between the Slavs and 
the Greek priesthood. During the sixties this 
discord became acute among the Bulgarians, 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 21 

who showed themselves wilHng even to accept 
CathoHcism as the price of reHgious indepen- 
dence ; but before the plans for a Bulgarian 
Uniate Church matured a more attractive 
proposal came to the fore. Russia lent it 
support, and in 1870 the Turks conceded 
the Bulgarians an autonomous National 
Church subject to purely formxal recognition 
of the patriarchal supremacy. 

The adherents of the new Church — the 
Bulgarian Exarchate— were declared schismatic, 
and excommunicated by the Patriarch, but 
these fulminations served only to intensify 
Bulgarian nationalism. 

During 1875 and 1876 powerful risings took 
place in Bulgaria. They were ruthlessly sup- 
pressed, but the hideous atrocities of the 
Turks and their denunciation by Gladstone 
roused the Powers to action. In December 
1876 a Conference of Ambassadors at Con- 
stantinople framed schemes of drastic reform, 
including the formation of an autonomous 
Bulgaria, which left little in Europe to the 
Turks except xAlbania and Thrace. The active 
part played by Russia in these events alarmed 
the British Government, which thought it 
saw the results of the Crimean War about to 
be nullified by the extension of Russian 
influence over the proposed Bulgarian princi- 



22 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

pality. Beaconsfield withdrew his support, 
and Russia took up arms against Turkey. 
The Russian victory in the campaign of 1877- 
1878 was complete, and on the 3rd March 1878 
the Porte was forced to sign the Treaty of 
San Stefano, which estabhshed an autonomous 
Bulgaria on practically the same lines as 
recommended by the Ambassadorial Conference 
of 1876. 

The Powers, led by England and Germany, 
again intervened, insisting that the fate of 
the Turkish Empire was a matter for all the 
European Powers to decide. A Conference 
was summoned at Berhn, and the Concert 
of Europe proceeded to emphasize its own 
discords by repeating them in the Balkans. 
The big Bulgaria of the Constantinople 
Conference and the Treaty of San Stefano 
was divided into three parts. That lying 
between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube 
became an independent Bulgaria. South of 
the Balkan Mountains, the province of Eastern 
Rumelia was given autonomy. But the 
greatest crime and the greatest blunder was 
perpetrated by the return of Macedonia to 
Turkey, subject only to pledges of reform 
which proved to be not worth the paper they 
were written on. The independence of 
Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro was recog- 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 23 

nized. Russia annexed Bessarabia from 
Rumania, which in return was assigned the 
Dobrudja, a region peopled almost entirety 
by Bulgarians and Turks. Further, in accord- 
ance with an agreement made by the Austrian 
and Russian Emperors at Reichstadt two 
years earlier, Austria-Hungary was given the 
right to occupy and administer Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. 

From the point of view both of the Balkan 
nations and of the Austro-Russian rivalry, 
the Treaty of Berlin w^as only a temporary 
compromise, but it reveals the diverse methods 
which the rival Powers were forced to adopt 
in Balkan affairs. Austria-Hungary was 
chiefly intent upon gaining a frontier co- 
terminous with Turkey, and regarded Serbia 
as a sphere of influence which might eventually 
be absorbed. Under the influence of this 
policy the possibility of '' Trialism,'' in which 
the Southern Slavs would take equal rank 
with the Germans and Magyars of the monarchy, 
was envisaged. Russia, on the other hand, 
had little hope of extending her own frontiers 
across the Balkans to the ^gean. Doubtless 
her rulers looked to a time when both sides 
of the Straits should be Russian territory, 
but for the rest her interests could best be 
advanced by the establishment of a subservient 



24 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

Bulgaria and Rumania. Rumania had always 
been aware of the dangers with which her 
neighbour's poUcy threatened her. She had j 
been compelled to allow a free passage to \ 
Russian troops during the war against Turkey 
in 1877-1878, and the Russian annexation of 
Bessarabia left a rankHng sore. In 1883 
Rumania passed into the camp of the Triple 
Alliance on terms similar to those by which 
Italy was bound. 

In the newly established Bulgaria, Russia 
soon found, not a submissive and cringing 
client, but an independent Power which w^as 
determined to place Bulgarian interests always 
first. The pro-Russian policy of Prince 
Alexander of Battenberg, who had been chosen 
to rule Bulgaria, roused violent opposition. 
In 1885, by a bloodless revolution, Bulgaria 1 
and Eastern Rumelia declared their union 
in defiance of the decision of the Powers. 
Russia determined to destroy what she re- 
garded as a rebellious colony, and urged 
Turkey to re-occup3' Eastern Rumelia. 

A sensational volte-face now occurred. Lord 
Salisbury had seen that the Bulgarians (as 
Mr. Gladstone had prophesied) had become 
a barrier against Russia, and that his former 
chief had " put our money on the wrong 
horse/' He decided to adopt a spirited poHcy 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 25 

in Bulgaria's favour. Througli the vigour 
of the ambassador at Constantinople, Sir 
William White, he thwarted Russia's proposal 
and saved Bulgaria from extinction. 

Bulgaria's danger, however, was not yet 
over. Austria incited Serbia to attack her. 
Russia, whose officers held every post in the 
Bulgarian army above the rank of captain, 
suddenly withdrew those officers in order to 
leave Bulgaria a helpless victim. It was then 
that the Bulgarian army performed its famous 
tour de force. Led by officers who had never 
commanded a battalion, it routed the Serbians 
at Slivnitza, invaded Serbia, and occupied Pirot. 
Only the intervention of Austria prevented 
a victorious march to Belgrade. 

Alexander, however, again allowed himself 
to be the tool of Russian intrigue, and was 
forced to abdicate. After an interregnum, 
Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was elected 
by the Sobranje, but the man to whom Bulgaria 
owed the preservation of her independence 
during these years was Stamboloff. He 
successfully countered Russian intrigues by 
despotic methods, which, however, in 1894 
brought about his downfall. A reconciliation 
with Russia was then effected, but the new 
relations were very different from the old. 
Russia had burned her fingers in trying to 



26 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

use for her own ends even a truncated Bulgaria, 
and was not likely to sacrifice any more for 
the Bulgaria of San Stefano, which would be 
strong enough to treat her still more cavalierly. 
By this time, in fact, Russia had recognized 
that it was more important for her to block 
the Austrian road to Salonika and to defer 
her own ambitions till the Sick Man of Europe 
should breathe his last. For this purpose 
the supremacy of Russian influence at Belgrade 
was essential. Serbia, however, ignored by 
Russia at San Stefano and Berlin, had sought 
Austrian friendship, and in 1881 concluded 
a secret treaty in which Austria declared that 
she would support Serbian expansion in the 
direction of the Vardar valley on condition 
that Serbia renounced the Adriatic seaboard. 
A permanent alliance of Austria-Hungary and 
Serbia was impossible owing to the strength 
of the nationalist movement among the 
Southern vSlavs outside Serbia. The murder 
of King Alexander and the return of the 
Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903 was at once 
an effect of and a stimulus to this nationalist 
movement. It emancipated Serbia from 
Austrian influence and led to an immediate 
rapprochement with Russia, which was ren- 
dered practically irrevocable by Austria's 
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 27 

The return of Macedonia to Turkey in 1878 
made " the Balkan question '' synonymous 
with " the Macedonian question," The Mace- 
donian Bulgarians who had risen against the 
Turks with their fellow-countrymen were 
callously handed back to their oppressors, 
but an undivided Bulgaria remained the goal 
of all their efforts. 

The whole question was now complicated 
by the conflict of Bulgarian, Serbian, and 
Greek ambitions. Hitherto the Macedonians 
had always been considered Bulgarian both 
by themselves and by their neighbours. When 
a plebiscite was taken under Article 10 of 
the Firman of 1870 in the provinces of Uskub 
and Ochrida, the requisite two-thirds majority 
was easily obtained for the appointment of 
exarchist Bishops. The existence of a Greek 
minority in southern Macedonia was generally 
admitted, but nothing was ever heard of 
Macedonians of Serbian nationality until 
Austria insisted on the renunciation of Serbian 
expansion to the Adriatic and agreed in return 
to support the latter's extension southward. 
The Serbian statesman, Dr. Milovanovich, 
admitted in 1898 that " the Serbs did not 
begin to think about Macedonia till 1885.'' 
The spontaneous revolutionary movement in 
Macedonia was Bulgarian in character. Mace- 



28 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

donian Serbs and Greeks had to be created 
by Government propaganda, and when school- 
masters and priests failed to produce inhabitants 
of the required nationality in sufficient number 
to justify the political ambitions of their em- 
ployers, new and fantastic theories had to 
be devised to prove that the inhabitants of 
Macedonia were anything but Bulgarian. 
Even Rumania took a hand in the game, 
and organized her own propaganda among 
the Vlachs who are scattered over Macedonia. 
Rumania, however, had no designs on Mace- 
donian territory (there is a limit to nationalist 
pretensions even in the Balkans !), but merely 
desired to create an instrument for barter 
against Bulgarian irredentism in the Dobrudja. 
The fate to which the Macedonians were 
condemned by the European Concert in 1878 
left them no hope of rescue from Turkish 
massacre, rape, and pillage by the Powers. 
All their hopes were now centred on their 
own efforts and the aid which their more 
fortunate fellow-countrymen in Bulgaria could 
give them. A widespread revolutionary organ- 
ization was soon created, which at length 
reached the ears of the Turkish authorities, 
with the result that guerilla warfare became 
the order of the day. But of what avail 
were a few thousand rifles against the tens 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 29 

of thousands of troops which Turkey could 
pour into the province ? From time to time 
reports of some especially hideous atrocity 
would excite a passing wave of public interest 
in Western European countries. England, in 
particular, made attempts to insist upon the 
execution of the reforms to which the Porte 
had agreed in 1878. Austria-Hungary and 
Russia, however, were alike too much interested 
in the maintenance of the status quo. As 
some one happily said, whenever they were 
called in as physicians the}^ also considered 
themselves to be the heirs of the Sick Man. 
Thus neither was willing to put the Turkish 
administration on a sound basis or to agree 
to any arrangement which might prejudice 
the ultimate disposal of Turkish territory. 

In 1903 widespread risings took place in 
Macedonia. Germany had now become the 
friend of Turkey, and the insurrection was 
savagely suppressed by the aid of German 
officers. Relief to the refugees was mainly 
sent from England, and the existing sympathy 
with that country was still further increased. 
The danger of an explosion of feehng in Bul- 
garia or in Russia, combined with humanitarian 
agitation in England and France, compelled 
the Powers to remember their undertaking 
(given in Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin) 



30 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

to reform the Macedonian province. Lord 
Lansdowne, while admitting the responsibihty 
of the '' interested Powers," Russia and 
Austria, took the lead in urging upon them a 
plan for real control of public order by ofl&cers 
of all the Great Powers. After long negotia- 
tions with the Porte, officers of each Power 
except Germany were established in the five 
different districts, but their functions was 
limited to inspection of the gendarmerie ; 
and an international finance commission, 
located at Salonika, was empowered to make 
suggestions to Hilmi Pasha, the Sultan's 
Inspector-General. 

Five years followed in which the Porte 
strove to crush the power of Bulgarian Mace- 
donia by encouraging Greek, Serbian, and 
Turkish bands to massacre Bulgarians. The 
'' murder lists '' compiled b}^ the British 
Embassy reached a total of 2,500 a year, 
and many villages sought safety in an osten- 
sible change of '' churchmanship," i.e. of 
nationality. 

Agreement among the Balkan States to 
eject the Turk seemed more remote than 
ever ; control by the Concert was hampered 
by Germany ; invasion by Bulgaria was vetoed 
by Russia. Every solution appeared impos- 
sible, when suddenly, in February 1908, the 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 81 

Austrian Government announced an agree- 
ment for railway concessions in Turkey. 
Great resentment at this disloyalty was felt 
in England, and Sir Edward Gre}^ some weeks 
later surprised the world by advancing a 
policy of real control by the Concert. In 
June of the same year the end of the historic 
feud between England and Russia was signal- 
ized by King Edward's meeting with the 
Tsar at Reval. For the first time the Turks 
felt themselves seriously threatened, and the 
Committee of Union and Progress, profiting 
by the general disgust at Abdul Hamid's 
government by espionage, carried out the 
bloodless revolution. The Sultan, frightened 
by the defection of his faithful Albanians, 
granted a constitution. The unity of all 
Turkish subjects as '' Ottomans '' was de- 
clared by the Young Turk committee, sitting 
at Salonika under the leadership of Talaat 
and Enver. Political prisoners were released. 
Turks and Christians, Bulgars and Greeks, 
demonstrated their brotherhood with common 
rejoicings, and even with common prayers. 

Austria seized the opportunity and annexed 
Bosnia. War with Serbia was long in the 
balance, but in the end Germany — " the ally 
in shining armour "~by a sudden and humili- 
ating menace to Russia forced the Powers to 



32 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

recognize Austria^s defiance of treaties re- 
garding Bosnia. Meanwhile Bulgaria declared 
herself an independent kingdom and seized 
the Bulgarian railways controlled by a 
Turkish company. 

In the period which followed, the Young 
Turks rapidly proved themselves chauvinists 
of a new and more dangerous kind by their 
relentless persecution of the various subject 
peoples. The Powers having (too hastily) 
withdrawn their officers, the condition of 
Macedonia, which Lord Lansdowne had called 
'' a standing menace to European peace/' 
became more desperate and irremediable than 
ever. So desperate, in fact, was it, that common 
misfortune produced the miracle of harmony 
among the Balkan rivals. 

The difhculties in the way of a Balkan 
League were many. Was Macedonia to 
become autonomous or was it to be parti- 
tioned ? In the latter case, could Bulgaria, 
Serbia, and Greece come to any agreement ? 
The opinion of Bulgarians and of the Mace- 
donians generally was in favour of autonomy, 
but the prospect of obtaining military action by 
Serbia and Greece for that end was hopeless. 
Both knew that an autonomous Macedonia 
spelt "finis " for their own designs, and more 
probably than not would follow the example 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 88 

of Eastern Rumelia and be incorporated 
eventually with Bulgaria, Until Serbia could 
bring Croats and Slovenes within its frontiers, 
until Greece could obtain the Islands and the 
Greek parts of Asia Minor, and until Rumania 
could redeem its nationals in Transylvania 
and Bessarabia, the balance of power in the 
Balkans remained the prime consideration for 
every State with the exception of Bulgaria, 
whose only field for expansion lay within 
the Peninsula itself. 

Beginning in 1909, conversations between 
Serbia and Bulgaria took place intermittently 
under Russian auspices. M. Malinoff declined 
to make any concessions to Serbia in the 
districts of Uskub and Koumanovo or to the 
Greeks in Kavalla, Serres, Vodena, and Kas- 
toria, but the outbreak of the Turko-Italian 
war in September 191 1 hastened events. 
M. Gueshoff, who was now Bulgarian Prime 
Minister, brought himself to the point of 
agreeing to concessions in Macedonia, and a 
Treaty of Alliance was signed on the 13th 
March 1912. The territorial partition was tem- 
poraril}^ settled by the allocation to Serbia of 
the Turkish territory north of the Shar Planina 
and the division of Macedonia into two parts, 
the south-eastern (including Monastir) being 
allotted to Bulgaria, while a north-western 

d 



34 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

strip (including Uskub) was left as a " con- 
tested zone ** to be finally disposed of by the 
arbitration of the Tsar. Beyond the southern 
limit of this zone Serbia undertook to make 
no claim. 

Against the outcry which they knew^ w^ould 
be provoked at home when the concessions 
were made public, the Bulgarian diplomats 
sought to strengthen their hands by means of 
a stipulation that partition and arbitration 
were only to take place if both parties become 
convinced that " their organization (i.e. of 
the territories between the Shar Planina, the 
Rhodopes, the ^gean, and Lake Ochrida) 
as a distinct autonomous province is im- 
possible." 

The Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of alliance, vague 
and unsatisfactory as it was, is almost a model 
of precision in comparison with that which was 
signed on the 29th May 1912 by Bulgaria and 
Greece. Conversations had been initiated in 
May 191 1 by the good offices of Mr. J. D. 
Bourchier, The Times correspondent in the 
Balkans, but almost broke down on the 
question of autonomy for Macedonia and the 
Adrianople vilayet. Ultimately, Bulgaria was 
satisfied with the insertion of a clause guaran- 
teeing '' rights accruing from treaties,'' i.e. 
Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin. Both 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 35 

parties seem to have understood that agree- 
ment about the disposal of Salonika and 
southern Macedonia was out of the question, 
and to have postponed settlement till after 
the war, in the course of which each doubtless 
hoped to obtain the advantage of military 
occupation. 

The subsequent history of the Balkan League 
is well known. In the summer of 1912 
Montenegro joined the hloCj and military 
conventions were negotiated by the Allies. 
War was declared against Turkey in October, 
and within a few weeks a series of victories 
brought the Bulgarian army to the lines of 
Tchatalja and placed Serbs and Greeks in 
occupation of the greater part of Macedonia 
and Albania. The success of the Allies startled 
the chancelleries of Europe, where any sugges- 
tion of the Balkans for the Balkan peoples 
was anathema. Austria-Hungary intimated 
that the permanent inclusion of Durazzo and 
the Adriatic coast within Serbia could not 
be tolerated. The Conference of London, 
assembled to negotiate peace, set up an 
independent Albania in deference to Austria's 
protest. At this point the latent dissensions 
between the Balkan States became plain. 
Serbia demanded the revision of the treaty 
with Bulgaria on the ground that new circum- 



86 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

stances had arisen. It was urged that Serbia 
had lost the x\driatic seaboard, while Bulgaria 
had gained Thrace ; that Serbian troops had 
been sent to assist in the siege of Adrianople, 
whereas Bulgaria had failed to fulfil promises 
of military help in the Macedonian theatre 
of war ; and finally that Bulgaria had not 
given full support to Serbia against the 
Austrian demands. Bulgaria replied that 
Serbia had flagrantly violated her undertaking 
to hold Macedonia in trust during the war by 
her active proscription of the Bulgarian nation- 
ahty, culminating in the expulsion of Bulgarian 
notables. 

The break-up of the Alliance was now in 
sight. The London Conference ended the 
war with Turkey by giving Bulgaria the 
Enos-Midia line, and then disbanded. During 
April both Serbia and Greece approached 
Rumania with proposals for an alliance against 
Bulgaria, and next month themselves concluded 
a secret treaty for the delimitation of Mace- 
donian frontiers '* on the principle of effective 
occupation and of equilibrium between the 
three States.'* While preparations for war 
were hurried on, a final effort was made for 
a pacific settlement by the arbitration of 
Russia. Serbia and Bulgaria alike were 
suspicious of the impartiality of Petrograd, 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 37 

but under pressure agreed to the proposal. 
At this moment General Savoff, the Bulgarian 
commander-in-chief, either on his own responsi- 
biUty or under orders from King Ferdinand, 
gave instructions for an attack on the Serbs 
and Greeks, which took place on the 29th 
June. The Cabinet cancelled the order at 
once, and retired the general who had given 
it. Russia also tried to prevent military 
measures on the part of Serbia and Greece. 
Bulgaria's enemies, however, were no longer 
in the mood for diplomacy, and immediately 
declared war. Within a fortnight Rumania 
and Turkey joined in the plunder, and by the 
end of July Bulgaria was forced to sue for 
peace. Negotiations were opened at Bukarest, 
and peace was concluded on the loth August. 
Rumania annexed the southern part of 
the Dobrudja; Serbia and Greece partitioned 
Macedonia almost in its entirety. The terms 
of the Serbo-Greek treaty of the previous 
May had left the towns of Serres, Drama, 
and Kavalla to Bulgaria. At Bukarest 
Greece included this district in her demands. 
To the protests of the Bulgarian delegates, 
M. Venizelos replied that he himself recognized 
that Kavalla was of little value to Greece, 
although well-nigh indispensable to Bulgaria, 
but that he had formal instructions from King 



38 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

Constantine forbidding him to sign the treaty 
on any other condition. In the early days of 
the negotiations Rumania intervened to obtain 
Kavalla for Bulgaria, and King Charles told 
the Bulgarian delegation that the port would 
be given to them. At the last moment she 
made a complete volte-face. It is now known 
that in the meantime she received a peremptory 
message from the German Emperor to leave 
Kavalla to Greece. This intervention, aiming 
at depriving Bulgaria of a satisfactory ^Egean 
port, and so rendering her more dependent 
on the Central Empires, was decisive. Under 
the threat of a Rumanian occupation of Sofia, 
Bulgaria gave way. 

Negotiations with the Porte followed at 
Constantinople. Bulgaria found that of the 
Powers under whose auspices and guarantees 
the Treaty of London had been concluded, 
only England considered it worth while to 
make a formal protest against the scrapping 
of that instrument. In face of such apathy 
she had no alternative but to return half her 
conquests in Thrace, including Adrianople, 
to Turkey. 

The instability of the equihbrium which 
these treaties pretended to establish was 
patent to every one with a first-hand knowledge 
of the circumstances. With a wisdom which 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 39 

would have been commendable had it been 
inspired by disinterested motives, the Great 
Powers withheld their recognition. 

Bulgaria had been the mainspring of the 
League. Until May 1913 Serbia and Greece 
were allies solely in virtue of the treaties 
which bound each to Bulgaria. Moreover, 
upon Bulgaria had fallen the brunt of the 
campaign against the Turks. Serbian and 
Greek casualties together hardly amounted 
to more than one-third of the Bulgarian 
total. These efforts and sacrifices had been 
made for one end alone — the liberation of 
Macedonia. The disastrous war among the 
Balkan Allies left Macedonia once more 
without hope either of incorporation in 
Bulgaria or of autonomy. At Bukarest the 
Bulgarian delegates made a final desperate 
effort to obtain the insertion in the treaty 
of a clause guaranteeing the educational and 
religious privileges which the subject nation- 
alities had enjoyed under the Ottoman Empire. 
Serbia returned an implacable negative. 
Indeed, the famihar process of '* Nationaliza- 
tion *' was already well under way in all the 
newly acquired territories. In the Dobrudja 
and in the parts of Macedonia annexed by 
Serbia and Greece, the Bulgarian Church was 
abolished and the schools closed, Bulgarian 



40 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

books burnt, and even the Bulgarian form of 
nomenclature forbidden. The most pitiless 
proscription of Bulgarian nationality was 
carried out in the Macedonian territory annexed 
by Serbia. Its character may be gauged from 
a few of the articles included in a decree for 
" public safety " published by the Serbian 
Government on the 4th October 1913. 

" Article 2. — Any attempt at rebeUion against 
the public powers is punishable by five years' 
penal servitude. 

** The decision of the police authorities, 
published in the respective communes, is 
sufficient proof of the commission of crime. 

" If the rebel refuses to give himself up as 
prisoner within ten days from such publica- 
tion, he may be put to death by any public 
or mihtary officer. 

" Article 4. — Where several cases of rebellion 
occur in a commune and the rebels do not 
return to their homes within ten days from 
the pohce notice, the authorities have the 
right of deporting their families whithersoever 
they may find convenient. 

" Likewise the inhabitants of houses in 
which arrested persons or criminals in general 
are found concealed shall be deported.'' ^ 

« This decree may be read in extenso in the Report of the 
International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and 



EUROPEAN POLITICS 41 

In December a draft constitution for " Ser- 
bian ** Macedonia was published. In the 
opinion of the Carnegie Commission, " the 
Turkish law ' of vilayets/ in combination with 
the ancient rights and privileges of the Christian 
Communities, granted to the different nation- 
alities by different treaties and firmans, gave 
far better assurance of mutual toleration and 
even a more effective rein on the arbitrary 
power of the administration than was afforded 
by this new draft constitution, which, from 
the administrative point of view, did nothing 
to abolish the measures laid down in the 
ordinances of 4th October." « 

The regime thus introduced proves up to 
the hilt that in 1913, at any rate, the in- 
habitants of Macedonia were not of Serbian 
nationality. If confirmation is needed, it 
is supplied by the Greek propagandist who 
writes under the pseudonym *' Poly bins." He 
writes : '* It is true that Serbia annexed (by 
the Treaty of Bukarest) a large portion of 
northern and central Macedonia (Uskub, Veles, 
Istip, Kochana, Prilep, Ochrida, etc.), where 
the majority of the Christian population is not 
Serbian, but Bulgarian in sentiment." * 

Conduct of the Balkan Wars (Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace), pp. 160-2. 
' Loc. cit., p. 164. 2 Greece Before the Conference, p. 21. 



42 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

A policy of proscription and terrorism similar 
to the vSerbian was adopted by the Greek 
and Rumanian authorities in the territory 
annexed by them. 



I 



CHAPTER III 
THE BALKAN PEOPLES TO-DAY 

Western Europeans are usually disposed to 
dismiss the inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula 
from their minds with a scant consideration 
which borders on contempt. There is therefore 
good reason for reminding them of the vicissi- 
tudes of their own country's history before 
it attained a real and permanent unity on 
the basis of nationality. To an Italian or 
a German whose fathers may have seen, if 
not participated in, the unification of their 
respective nations, the extreme insistence on 
the idea of nationality which is the most 
prominent feature of the political life of the 
Balkan States is much more easily com- 
prehensible than to an Englishman or a 
Frenchman, who finds it almost impossible 
to understand the narrowness of view which 
national consciousness tends to produce among 
these peoples. 

As we have seen before, the population of 
the Balkans does not present a number of 

43 



44 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

compact and homogeneous ethnic units, but 
rather a mosaic of races in which may be 
discerned several well-defined nuclei, separated, 
however, by regions in which the population 
exhibits a diversity of race unparalleled in 
the experience of Western European nations. 

Moreover, at one time or another in history 
each one of these peoples has obtained an 
ascendancy over the rest, and bases its present 
claims on the maximum territory it has ever 
possessed. In this way nationalism develops 
into megalomania ; the Greeks, for example, 
consider themselves the heirs not merely of 
the Hellenic supremacy in the ancient world, 
but also of the Macedonian and Byzantine 
Empires, while the two Slavonic peoples look 
to a revival of the dominion they enjoyed at 
different periods in the Middle Ages, although 
in strict justice it must be stated here that 
the Bulgarians have always been the least 
offenders in this respect. 

The long struggle for national existence 
which all the Balkan nations have had to 
wage, together with the fact that hitherto 
none has succeeded in obtaining the boundary 
to which the principle of nationality entitles 
it, has had two important results. In the 
first place, war, and the preparation for war, 
have become so inseparably connected with 



THE BALKAN PEOPLES TO-DAY 45 

the establishment of national claims that all 
have tended to forget that the ultimate con- 
dition which should be kept in view is not 
war but peace. Again, the nation has come 
to be regarded as something which must 
sharply define itself and separate itself from 
other nations. This ideal is carried even 
into the sphere of economics, and a frontier 
is regarded as a barrier to trade and inter- 
course. 

In spite of all this the peoples of the Peninsula 
have many qualities which entitle them to 
respect and admiration, and it is not too 
much to look forward to a future when their 
political relationships will be stable and they 
will take their rightful place in the family 
of nations. 

We v/ill now examine each a little more 
closely. 

The Balkan State most familiar to the 
Western European is Greece. The associations 
which its ancient civilization has brought it, 
the memory that its liberation was accom- 
plished through the naval victory of the 
allied fleets of England, France and Russia, 
its extensive foreign trade, and its colonies, 
small perhaps in number but not in influence, 
scattered along the highways of the world's 
commerce — all these have brought Greece into 



46 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

an intimacy with the rest of the world which 
other Balkan countries have lacked. Modern 
Greece has had a chequered history. For 
many years financial troubles beset her, and 
the Powers had to intervene and set up a 
Commission of Control. Further administra- 
tive deficiencies were revealed by the disastrous 
war with Turkey in 1897. Since the violent 
incidents of 1909, corruption and inefficiency 
have been largely eradicated under the 
leadership of the able Cretan statesman, 
M. Venizelos. Though clever and successful 
in commerce, modern Greeks have gained a 
reputation for plausibility and untrustworthi- 
ness. Jealousy and fear of Bulgaria, and 
dreams of the Great Hellas surpassing the 
glories of the Byzantine Empire, are the main 
features of their foreign outlook. The King's 
*' Bulgarokthonos " (Slayer of Bulgarians) 
medal, struck in commemoration of the 
victories of 1913, constitutes an ironical 
commentary on Greek pretensions to Hellenic 
culture. 

Rumania is the only other Balkan country 
which rivals Greece in the assumption of a 
superficiality of Western culture. It is a 
commonplace of the Rumanians to talk super- 
ciliously about their superior civilization. 



THE BALKAN PEOPLES TO-DAY 47 

They look down on Serbs and Bulgars as 
nations of peasants and domestical]}^ virtuous 
people. 

In Bukarest enormous wealth, drawn from 
land and oil, is concentrated. The luxurious 
hotels, the narrow streets crowded with motors 
and carriages, and the demi-monde flaunting 
itself everywhere, are sufficient indication of 
one side of Rumanian life. The counterpart 
of this meretricious luxury is to be found in 
the gross poverty of the country-side, and of 
the workers' dwellings in Bukarest itself. The 
land is mainly divided into great estates 
cultivated by hired labourers under conditions 
little better than serfdom. Peasant revolts 
have occurred more than once, and, in view 
of the proximity of the example of Russia, 
are not unlikely to occur again. 

The two Slavonic peoples have many qualities 
in common ; both are primarily nations of 
peasants, owning the land from which they 
make their livelihood, and both have shown 
military attainments of the highest order. 
There is none of what we call '* snobbery '' 
and '* flunkeyism *' — the *' snobbery " which 
consists in the admiration of trivial and super- 
ficial social distinctions, or the '' flunkeyism " 
which leads men to express an outward 



48 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

deference which they do not really feel towards 
those who are richer than they or who are 
supposed to be superior in station. 

Both are countries which have only recently 
entered on the path of material progress, and 
many of their people think that Western 
civilization is something to be imitated or 
something to be taken over as a whole without 
discrimination. Fortunately, however, there 
are a large number of enlightened men and 
women who see that this is a profound mistake 
and that Western civilization consists of many 
diverse elements, some good and some very 
bad. They realize that the concentration of 
wealth in a few hands and the excessive 
elaboration of comfort and display are examples 
of the latter kind, and distinguish these from 
the inventions of modern science — the railway, 
the telephone, and the triumphs of sanitation, 
irrigation and agricultural development. 

The Serbs are distinguished by their mysti- 
cism and by their devotion to art and literature. 
They resemble Russians in many respects — 
they are dreamy and emotional, and deeply 
religious. Ever since they gained national 
independence, the pressure of economic forces 
has made either the Adriatic or the iEgean 
the goal of all their policy. Sufficient emphasis 



THE BALKAN PEOPLES TO-DAY 49 

has already been laid on the weakness of 
their claims in south-east Macedonia. Even 
the success which attended Serbian designs 
in that region in 1913 was inadequate for 
her needs, and the arrangement concluded 
with Greece for commercial facilities at Salonika 
had been found unsatisfactory during the 
months between the Treaty of Bukarest and 
the outbreak of the European War. 

The people of Bulgaria present several 
striking contrasts with the Serbians. They 
have been variously described as the Scotch, 
the Germans, and the Dutch of the Near 
East. It is generally admitted that they are 
distinguished by industry, prudence, love of 
progress, method. These quahties inspire 
admiration in all, liking in some. It is when 
we come to other national characteristics 
— ^reserve, bluntness, thrift, calculation — that 
we begin to differ. Perhaps no other national 
psychology gives rise to such violent difference 
of opinion. Bulgarophobes find in the Bulgar 
pure egoism, leading to suspiciousness, ingrati- 
tude, and brutality. The Bulgar's friends, 
on the other hand, detect in bluntness and 
phlegmatic reserve an additional proof of 
real feeling and honesty. They contrast these 
qualities with the superficiality and trickiness 
of more nimble-witted traders and the noisy 



50 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

emotionalism of more poetic nationalists. 
Parsimony and suspiciousness they excuse as 
the product of subjection to an alien tyranny. 

On the surface the Bulgar is certainly 
unsympathetic, and he is considered unfeeling. 
An element of calculation and order enters 
into his aims and emotions. Even in matters 
of religion it is said that his estimate of moral 
progress savours too much of desire for profit. 
But this cast of mind is readily forgiven if 
affection and regard, when once bestowed, 
are deep and durable. The few foreigners 
who have seen the Bulgarian when his sympa- 
thies are put to the test have sometimes been 
surprised to find him deeply moved. For 
instance, when King Ferdinand's first wife, 
Princess Clementine, was carried to the grave, 
the population of Sofia, whose attendance at 
the funeral ceremonies was expected to be 
perfunctory, was seen, to the astonishment 
of the foreign diplomatists, to be dissolved in 
tears. It is, again, rather singular that the 
portrait of Mr. Gladstone, whose efforts for 
Bulgaria were not only in a distant land, but 
were unsuccessful, is quite commonly found 
in Bulgarian houses. 

One thing is certain — that the Bulgar's 
neighbours, while they scoff at his brutal 
directness and his domestic puritanism, are 



THE BALKAN PEOPLES TO-DAY 51 

alarmed at his rapid progress in efficiency. 
The industrial arts have been pushed forward 
in a way which has brought to Bulgarians the 
title of the Japanese of Europe. It may be 
admitted that the practical Bulgarian is less 
poetically romantic than the Serb ; but when 
the antagonism to Russia of many Bulgarians 
to-day is held to show a baseness of which a 
poetic disposition would not be capable, it 
must be recalled that till the murder of King 
Alexander, Serbia, now regarded as a model 
of loyalty to the Slav idea, was Austrophil. 
Bulgarians are less apt to adopt the veneer 
of civilization than the Rumanians, less clever 
than the Serbs and Greeks. It is noticeable, 
however, that British officials who have dealt 
with all these peoples find the Bulgarians 
the most honest of the four. 

Among their most notable achievements has 
been their progress in education. Hardly more 
than a generation has passed since Bulgaria 
was without any educational system what- 
ever. Until 1878 there were no schools except 
Greek and Turkish, and these hardly extended 
beyond the towns; but immediately after the 
liberation education w^as made obligatory, and 
a large proportion£of the national revenue 
has been expended for this purpose. In the 
Turkish districts the Mohammedan schools, 



52 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

equally with the Christian, are aided by the 
State. With regard to higher education, little 
would be expected of a country so young. 
It is therefore surprising that, even compared 
with Rumania and Greece, where the wealthy 
citizens are able to build and endow institu- 
tions, unexpected progress has been made. 
After the exhausting wars of 1912 and 1913 
new schools on the most expensive model 
were pushed forward. The stranger feels, 
from the well-kept appearance of the schools, 
that education is not an exotic which is 
nourished with difficulty, but is deep-rooted 
in the mind of the people. It has about it 
nothing slipshod, half-hearted, or slovenly. 
There is hardly a peasant who cannot read 
and who does not habitually follow the 
incidents in Bulgarians foreign relations, and 
as these happen to be the main feature in 
the political life of the country, the Bulgarian 
peasant appears in some ways even more 
educated than the average inhabitant of 
Western European countries. 

The influence of English thought through 
the activity of American educationists has 
been immense. Long before the liberation 
in 1878 Bulgarians had been the first to profit 
by the great American institution on the 
Bosphorus, Robert College. Although the 



THE BALKAN PEOPLES TO-DAY 53 

national University has latterly been highly 
developed, and though national sentiment 
gives it preferential treatment, Robert College 
is still largely attended by the sons of influential 
men. A marked feature of the educated 
world is its devotion to English culture. The 
Society for the Study of English at Sofia 
counts some hundreds of members, and it 
is a unique phenomenon in Balkan life that 
a large audience can be collected in Sofia 
able to understand an English speech. 

It is no doubt due to the development of 
education that Bulgaria is distinguished from 
her neighbours by her greater toleration of 
alien churches. Turks, Jews, and Catholics 
enjoy full religious liberty. Bulgaria is 
peculiar among Balkan countries in producing 
a large number of Protestants whose sincerity 
in adopting Western ideas creates among 
English and American travellers a sense of 
affinity not often felt in other Balkan countries. 
The national character of the Bulgarians is 
reflected in their political outlook, which is 
objective and realistic. They are not dominated 
by historical illusions like the Great Hellas 
which vitiates so much the politics of Greece. 
Bulgarian nationalism has thus not degenerated 
into Imperialism, and by this it gains rather 
than loses in intensity. Just as nationalism 



54 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

has been the determming factor in Bulgarian 
poUtics from the moment of her independence, 
so, too, it has been the crucial issue in deciding 
the part she has played since 1914. 

The Albanians are one of the obscurest 
and least known of the peoples of Europe. 
Their mountainous home is rarely visited by 
travellers ; but all who venture there speak 
highly of the loyalty and bravery of its primi- 
tive inhabitants. The Albanians are divided 
into two main branches — Ghegs in the north, 
and Tosks in the south. Each of these con- 
sists of Mohammedans and of Christians, both 
Orthodox and Catholic. The three religions 
count approximately the same number of 
Albanian adherents. Tribal rivalry is intense, 
and blood feuds prevail everywhere. It has 
been said that intolerance of ahen authority 
is the only bond that holds them together, 
and it is indeed certain that neither Serbia 
nor Greece could govern Albania except by 
a policy of extermination. The continuance 
of Albanian independence under the benevolent 
auspices of the League of Nations offers the 
best hope of preserving the many noble 
qualities of its people and of enabling them 
to contribute their share to the achievements 
of the human race. 



PART II 

THE BALKAN NATIONS DURING 
THE WAR 



I 



CHAPTER IV 
THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES 

It is not yet forgotten that a political assas- 
sination committed in the cause of Greater 
Serbia was the spark which set Europe ablaze 
in 1914, but the extent to which the more 
distant origins of the conflict were influenced 
by Balkan problems is less generally realized. 
This influence was exercised in two ways : 
first through the interplay of Balkan Nation- 
alism with Austrian Imperialism, which has 
already been dealt with ; and secondly through 
the growing interest of Germany in Near 
Eastern affairs. 

For a decade or more previous to the war 
the prestige of Germany in the Near East 
had been increasing. German policy aimed 
primarily at the acquisition of economic 
facilities, and in particular of railway conces- 
sions. It is possible that her determination 
to obtain such privileges in the Ottoman 
Empire was dictated by political motives. 

Be that as it may, German diplomacy repre- 
ss 



58 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

sented by Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, 
and German finance under the leadership of 
the Deutsche Bank, reigned supreme at Con- 
stantinople during the later years of Abdul 
Hamid II, and very soon regained their old 
position after a temporary eclipse in the 
early days of the '' Young Turk " Revolution. 
The political ambitions of Austria and the 
economic designs of Germany working hand 
in hand rendered the Drang nach Osten a 
formidable reality. 

The formation of the Balkan League in 
1912 and its startling successes in the war 
against Turkey dealt a shrewd blow at the 
Central Empires, and it seemed for the moment 
as if the slogan " the Balkans for the Balkan 
peoples *' had put an end to Austria's policy 
of divide et imp era. The rupture between the 
Balkan allies, however, gave a new lease of 
life to Habsburg Imperialism. The separa- 
tion of Serbia from Bulgaria by the driving 
of the former away from the Adriatic and 
towards Macedonia was an Austrian triumph. 
Austria, indeed, seems to have made up her 
mind to settle accounts with Serbia at the 
time of the second Balkan War, for Signor 
Giolitti has revealed the fact that enquiries 
were made at Rome whether Italy would 
agree that a casus Jcederis had been made 



THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES 59 

out for a joint attack on Serbia. Italy 
replied with a refusal, and the Central Powers 
postponed action, doubtless because the in- 
crease in the German military forces deemed 
necessary in consequence of the formation of 
the Balkan League had not yet been carried 
through. 

In dealing with Balkan problems the Triple 
Entente suffered from the disadvantage of 
inadequate definition both of its aims and of 
the conditions which held it together. It 
may be granted that on the side of England 
at least the primar\^ object was the mainten- 
ance of peace ; but since the method adopted 
to that end consisted in countering German 
policy by lending support to the alliance of 
France and Russia, Great Britain's interests 
in many spheres were subordinated to those 
of her partners, whose aims were not always 
equally pacific. This subordination of Eng- 
land's pacific interests to those of her partners 
is particularly evident in the Balkans, and 
the w^ar only served to put it beyond doubt. 

In spite of the blunder com.mitted by 
Beaconsfield in 1878, and the fact that Sir 
Edward Grey had allowed the Treaty of 
London to be torn up within three months 
of its signature with merely a verbal protest, 
England had earned a reputation as a defender 



60 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

of weak and oppressed nationalities, and being 
without any Balkan interests of her own to 
pursue, possessed the additional asset of im- 
partiality. 

Of the Entente Powers, Russia w^as the 
most vitally and directly interested in Balkan 
affairs. The nature of her aspirations was 
w^ell known not merely to her allies and enemies, 
but to all Balkan States, neutral and bellig- 
erent. Russia wanted the Bosphorus and the 
Dardanelles, and the fixity of purpose with 
which she had striven for that aim would 
surely have convinced any one of average 
intelligence, even in the very early days of 
the war, that the conflict would at no very 
distant date be extended to Turkey. The 
influence which Germany wielded with the 
Porte made it equally certain that Turkey 
would range herself on the side of the Central 
Powers. The British seizure of the two Turkish 
warships under construction in England, fol- 
lowed by the escape of the Goeben and Breslau 
to the Bosphorus in the first month of war, 
placed Turkey's attitude beyond the least 
possibility of doubt. At the same time the 
permanent officials at the British Foreign 
Office were possessed by a fixed idea that 
Bulgaria and Turkey had a secret alliance. 
They considered that Bulgaria was already 






THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES 61 \ 

lost, and that all efforts at Sofia were therefore 
hopeless. The official view was apparently that 
Turkey and Bulgaria could not be separated. 

The criticism generally levelled at Sir Ed- 
ward Grey's policy before the war took the 
line that it committed England to habilities 
which were supposed to be hmited, but the 
limits of which were never clearly defined 
to the public, to the Cabinet, or even to those 
Powers with whom we had '' understandings/' 
It was said that the British Foreign Secretary 
pursued a Continental policy without follov/ing 
the first rule of the game as generally con- 
ceived, which was to obtain the alliance of 
every Power whose mihtary strength or strate- 
gical importance warranted such consideration. 
His policy involved the risk of committing 
England to a Continental war, but he did 
not prepare opinion for it at home, and only 
partially paved the way for it abroad. On 
this question the last word has not yet been 
said, and judgment must still be suspended. 
Whatever point such criticism may have, one 
would imagine that the mere fact of war — 
and of a war which found the Entente much 
less prepared than her enemies — would have 
brought home at once the necessity of enHsting 
on the right side every Power whose help 
was obtainable. 



62 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

Doubtless many men shrank almost in- 
stinctively from extending the war in any 
direction ; but when the reality of war is 
an accomplished fact, such sentimentaHsm is 
a source of weakness. Moreover, it was 
clearly beside the point in the case of the 
Balkan States, each one of which was only 
half a nation and had no hope of re- 
deeming its kinsmen from alien rule except 
by war. 

British statesmen should have been quick 
to grasp the fact that the advantages which 
Germany enjoyed over France by her treacher- 
ous attack on Belgium, and over Russia b}^ 
her more rapid mobilization, made it essential 
for the Entente to strengthen its military 
position by gaining new allies. We think it 
may be assumed— with all deference to the 
official view — that Turkey's entry on the side 
of the Central Powers was from the beginning 
only a matter of months, and after the arrival 
of the German warships at Constantinople 
hardly more than a matter of days. But 
Italy and the three Balkan States, Bulgaria, 
Rumania, and Greece, were open to advances. 
Of these countries Italy was by far the strongest 
individually, but her active participation had 
no great immediate value from the strategical 
point of view, since the British and French 



THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES 63 

fleets were sufficiently strong to maintain the 
blockade of Austria and Turkey. 

The weakest joint in the Central Powers' 
armour lay farther East. They could only 
turn the Turkish alliance to account by effect- 
ing a junction of forces, which was imprac- 
ticable while Bulgaria barred the way ; while 
for the Allies the imperative necessity of 
opening up communications with Russia made 
the adhesion of Bulgaria of first-class import- 
ance. Thus a glance at the map reveals that 
for both sides Bulgaria held the key to the 
situation. If she sided with the Entente, the 
Austro-German Oriental policy would be frus- 
trated at a vital point ; Serbia's flank would 
be secure ; and, even apart from the advantages 
which would accrue from her assistance in 
forcing the Straits, her adhesion would at 
once give the Western members of the Entente 
easy access to their Russian ally. 

The conditions upon which Bulgaria could 
be induced to fight for the Triple Entente 
were definite and limited. In general terms 
they amounted to a revision of the Treaties 
of Bukarest and Constantinople, and the 
substitution of a territorial settlement based 
on the principle of nationality. This settle- 
ment involved the absorption of Bulgarian 
Macedonia and Thrace, together with adequate 



64 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

access to the iEgean, which would be ensured 
by the restoration to Bulgaria of the 
Drama - Serres - Kavalla district of eastern 
Macedonia. Bulgaria indulged in no dreams 
of Empire ; Constantinople was never seriously 
considered, and Salonika but rarely. Her 
ambition was rather to form a compact, 
homogeneous mass between the two empires 
of Austria and Russia — a buffer State which 
it would be to the interest of both to 
maintain. 

Her experiences in 1912 and 1913 had left 
her with no illusions concerning the trust- 
worthiness of diplomatic assurances. Nothing 
but guarantees of the most explicit kind would 
persuade Bulgarian politicians, soldiers and 
people to fight yet a third war. fp^^i V'l 

Political opinion in Bulgaria was pretty 
evenly divided between the Entente and the 
Central Powers. The Radoslavoff Ministry, 
which came into power just before the outbreak 
of the second Balkan War, had sought a 
rapprochement with Austria-PIungary, but 
without concluding an agreement. At the 
elections held in October 1913 it had failed 
to obtain a majority — a fact which indicates 
the strength of the traditional friendship of 
the Bulgarian people for the Entente Powders. 
In February of the|^f olio wing year it was 



THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES 65 

compelled to go to the country once again, 
and this time, thanks to the support of the 
eighteen Turkish deputies elected in the recently 
annexed regions, it succeeded in obtaining a 
majority of fifteen. 

The disinclination of the Entente financiers 
to raise a loan for the rehabilitation of Bul- 
garian finance threw the Government into 
closer intimacy with Austria and German}^ 
and, with the support of Count Berchtold, it 
successfully negotiated a loan in Berlin. It 
should be noted, however, that the German 
Government's approval of this loan was only 
given after it had received assurances from 
Greece and Rumania that they would raise 
no objections. 

Immediately on the outbreak of the European 
War, tempting offers were made to induce 
Bulgaria to join le bloc Austro-Allemand, 
King Constantine of Greece had promised the 
Kaiser that Greece would remain neutral in 
the event of a Bulgarian attack on Serbia, 
while Rumania informed Sofia directly that 
her neutrality could be relied upon in the 
same circumstances. Despite their strong 
Austro-German leanings. King Ferdinand and 
M. Radoslavoff, knowing the resistance of 
the people and the strength of the Opposition 
parties, rejected these advances. 

5 



66 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

This was the opportunity for the Entente 
to make their bid for Bulgarian assistance by 
strengthening the hands of the Opposition 
against the Court and the Cabinet. The 
argument that nothing would have deterred 
Ferdinand from joining the Central Powers 
fails to take account of the well-known fact of 
his cowardice which rendered him incapable 
of standing out against pubHc opinion unless 
his own security was assured. His elaborate 
precautions for personal safety were the 
object of general ridicule and an index of his 
subservience to popular feeling. 

The sympathy and admiration of the cul- 
tured classes for France and England, the 
universal feeling of gratitude towards Russia, 
and the still active hatred of Turkey, consti- 
tuted the strength of the Opposition's attitude. 
Their weakness lay in the fact that Bulgarian 
aspirations could only be realized by the 
acquisition of those parts of Macedonia annexed 
by Serbia and Greece at the Treat}^ of Bukarest ; 
and Serbia was already committed to the 
Entente. This weakness, however, was more 
apparent than real. As has already been 
pointed out, the Treaty of Bukarest had 
never received the confirmation of the Entente 
Powers, nor were they responsible for its 
terms. They were therefore not precluded 



THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES 67 

from applying upon Serbia whatever pressure 
might be necessary to induce her to restore 
to Bulgaria so much of the territory which 
the latter had lost under the Bukarest Treaty 
as would ensure her adhesion to the Entente 
cause. Subsequent military events made 
such concessions desirable in the interests 
not merely of the Entente, but of Serbia 
herself. 

Moreover, the Entente held in their hands 
a trump card of incalculable value if played 
at the right moment and in the right way. 
This was nothing less than a prospective 
partition of both the Habsburg and the 
Ottoman Empires in accordance with the 
principles of freedom and nationality so elo- 
quently proclaimed by their leading statesmen. 
Thus for the Entente it was a question not 
merely of winning Bulgaria by forcing Serbia 
to make concessions, but of inducing every 
Balkan State to join issue against the German- 
Austro-Turkish alliance for the realization of 
true national unity by all. The Balkan 
League could be re-created and a permanent 
settlement of the Near Eastern question 
achieved. 

The following memorandum, submitted to 
the Foreign Secretary early in August 1914, 
summarizes the vital factors affecting British 



68 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

policy at Sofia — the crux of the whole Balkan 
situation : — 

MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED TO SIR EDWARD 
GREY BY MR. NOEL BUXTON. 

Assuming that H.M. Government's object is to 
prevent Bulgaria's adhesion to the German side, 
Bulgaria's peculiar point of view must be remembered. 

(i) Her eyes are on her " lost provinces," and the 
breach between her and the three Powers 
which took them is very deep. 

(2) Bulgarians are of calculating disposition. The 

possible gain from a victory of the Entente 
counts less than the present dangers in which 
Bulgaria stands from Turkish attack. A 
guarantee against Turkey would be the chief 
lever to use. Bulgarian neutrality should 
be attainable if H.M. Government can be 
explicit on this point, while offering further 
advantages in the event of the success of 
the Entente. 

(3) In regard to Bulgaria, special effort is needed, 

because Sir H. Bax-Ironside has been openly 
pro-Serb. 

(4) Bulgarians feel that what they have to offer 

is freedom for Serbia, Rumania, and Greece 
to take part in the war. It may be answered 
that Bulgaria is not able to fight, but it is 
very noticeable that in a recent debate in the 



THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES m 

Sobranje all parties spoke of fighting as 
probably inevitable. Bulgaria has muni- 
tions to begin a war, though requiring a 
loan. 

Assuming that H.M. Government wishes to prevent 
the paralysation of Serbia through a Bulgarian 
attack, or through the passage of Turkish armies 
across a neutral Bulgaria, the object in view is armed 
Bulgarian neutrality, giving the Entente freedom 
from Turkish attack and from the paralysation of 
Bulgaria's neighbours. It is much more than pacific 
neutrality. 

Conditions for securing armed Bulgarian neutrality 
are : — 

(i) Guarantee against Turkey. 

(2) Assurance that England and France and Russia 

will continue to act together in this guarantee. 

(3) Definite approach from England. English sup- 

port or acquiescence in Russian proposals 
is not enough. The Bulgarian Ministry 
came into office as anti-Russian, and could 
not execute a volte-face unless the Premier 
could say he had not turned pro-Russian, 
but was siding with England. 

(4) Revision of the Bukarest Treaty frontiers in 

the event of victory for the Entente. This 
must be more or less specific. 

(5) A loan. 



70 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

The possibilities of the situation thus created 
were seriously considered by the British 
Cabinet very shortly after the declaration of 
war. Several members of the Cabinet urged 
that the Balkan League w^as not an impossi- 
bility. Other ministers, however, considered 
it a chimera. The section which believed that 
the co-operation of the Balkan States was 
feasible declined to be satisfied with a policy 
of inaction, and suggested to Sir Edward 
Grey that Mr. Noel Buxton should be sent 
to Sofia, where the situation was reported to 
be critical. The First Lord of the Admiralty 
arranged for H.M.S. Hussar to be at Brindisi 
to take him on to Salonika, and wrote the 
following letter, which is now published by his 
special permission : — 

Rt. Hon. W. S. Churchill M.P., to 
Mr. Noel Buxton. 

''Admiralty, WmxEHALL, S.W., 

*' August 31, 1914. 
" My Dear Buxton, 

"It is of the utmost importance to the 
future prosperity of the Balkan States that they 
should act together. This is the hour when the 
metal can be cast into the mould. It is only by 
reclaiming from Austria territories which belong 



THE CONFLICT OF POLICIES 71 

naturally to the Balkan races that the means can 
be provided to satisfy the legitimate needs and aspi- 
rations of all the Balkan States. Without taking 
Austrian territory, there is no way by which any 
Balkan State can expand except by internecine war. 
But the application of the principle of nationaUty 
to the southern provinces of Austria will produce 
results so advantageous to the Balkan States that 
the memory and consequences of former quarrels 
could be assuaged for ever. 

" The creation of a Balkan Confederation comprising 
Bulgaria, Serbia, Rumania, Montenegro, and Greece, 
strong enough to play an effective part in the destinies 
of Europe, m^ust be the common dream of all their 
peoples. The result of this war is not doubtful. 
Sooner or later Germany will be starved and beaten. 
Austria will be resolved into its component parts. 
England has always won in the end ; and Russia 
is unconquerable. England has been the friend of 
every Christian State in the Balkans during all their 
years of struggle and suffering. She has no interests 
of her own to seek in the Balkan Peninsula. But 
with her wealth and power she will promote and 
aid every step which is taken to build up a strong 
union of the Christian peoples, like that which 
triumphed in the first Balkan War. By acting 
together in unity and good faith the Balkan States 
can now play a decisive part, and gain advantages 
which may never again be offered. By disunion 
they will simply condemn themselves to tear each 
other's throats without profit or reward, and left 



72 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

to themselves they will play an utterly futile part 
in the destinies of the world. 

" I want you to make your friends in Greece and 
Bulgaria realize the brilliant but fleeting opportunity 
which now presents itself, and to assure them that 
England's might and perseverance will not be with- 
held from any righteous effort to secure the strength 
and union of the Balkan peoples. 

" Yours very sincerely, 

*' Winston S. Churchill." 



CHAPTER V 

THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 

The two greatest obstacles to energetic action 
by the Entente in Bulgaria were constituted 
by the attitude of the British representative 
at Sofia and the policy of Russia. 

The British Minister at Sofia, Sir Henry Bax- 
Ironside, was known to be violently pro-Serbian. 
It was not surprising that he was spoken of 
as '' Minister for Serbia rather than for Eng- 
land." His unsuitability was doubly injurious 
to British interests. In the first place, Bul- 
garian Ministers were disinclined to open 
pourparlers through the normal channels ; and 
secondly, the news received by the British 
Foreign Office was unduly pessimistic, and, 
therefore, disastrously misleading. It seems 
strange that, at a time when Bulgaria was 
recognized as the crux of the situation, the 
opportunity should not have been taken of 
giving a Minister of such capacit}^ and personal 
charm a more suitable post. The blame 
clearly rests with the Foreign Office and not 

73 



74 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

with Sir Henry Bax-Ironside. Eventually the 
warnings given to Sir Edward Grey from many 
quarters took effect, and in the spring of 
1915 the Foreign Secretary recalled him and 
despatched Mr. O'Beirne in his place. 

Russia alternated between wishing Bulgaria 
to fight in order to help against Turkey and 
to liberate Rumania for military action, and 
wishing her not to fight lest she should antici- 
pate Russia in Thrace. After the war Russian 
Ministers did not w^ant to find a strong Bulgaria 
or Rumania barring the way to Constantinople ; 
and M. Sazonoff had, moreover, to reckon 
with the anti-Bulgarian campaign in the 
Petrograd Press, which called Bulgaria the 
Judas of the Slav cause. On the other hand, 
the Orthodox religion and affable manners of 
the Serbians endeared them to the aristocracy 
and bureaucracy which controlled Russian 
policy. Finally, Russia's desire to have the 
task of allotting Macedonia herself made her 
chary of giving explicit promises to Bulgaria. 

To set against these difficulties was the 
fact that Bulgaria was not yet committed to 
the Central Powers. The uncertainty with 
which her attitude was regarded by Turkey and 
her allies was indicated by the attempt on the 
lives of Mr. N. Buxton and Mr. C. R. Buxton 
by a Turkish assassin on the 15th October 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 75 

at Bukarest.J The assassin was a political 
entlmsiast who had taken part in the Young 
Turk movement. Later it transpired that he 
was on terms of the greatest intimacy with 
Fetih Bey, the Turkish Minister at Sofia, 
who during the whole of the time w^as cognizant 
of, if not directly responsible for, the hatching 
of the plot. The reception of the news of 
the attempted assassination by the Germ.an 
Press, if it does not give any clue to the ques- 
tion of German complicit}^ at least indicates 
very forcibly the nervousness which was felt 
in Berlin on Bulgaria's account.^ 

* The assassin was condemned by a Rumanian tribunal 
to five years' imprisonment. He was liberated by 
the Germans when they overran Rumania, and subse- 
quently became a popular figure in Turkey. He was 
killed by the Greeks during the disturbances at Smyrna 
in June 1919. 

2 The following extract from an article by Paul Block 
in the Berliner Tageblatt, reputed to be the German 
counterpart of The Manchester Guardian, will suffice to 
illustrate the point : — 

" Out of Christianity and hatred of the Turks, Buxton 
did a splendid business for his fatherland, and when he 
snapped his mighty jaws one could hear the bones of 
Turkey crushed between them. A wild young Turk 
has shot Herr Noel Buxton in the jaw. Of course this 
is a deed which every civilized man must disapprove. 
But I cannot help myself. I rejoice that it was precisely 
in the mouth that this Mr. Buxton was wounded. For 
it was a mouth full of guile and arrogance to everything 



76 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

The victory of the Marne and the further 
check which Germany suffered at the first 
battle of Ypres strengthened the current of 
opinion favourable to the Entente in Sofia, and 
the entry of Turke}^ upon the side of the Cen- 
tral Powers on the 31st October, coupled with 
the Austrian advance in Serbia, spurred the 
Entente Ministers to action. Tangible proofs 
of an improvement in the Bulgarian Govern- 
ment's attitude were not wanting. The 
appointment of General Fitcheff as Minister 
for War and the changed tone of the Echo de 
Bulgarie may be quoted as instances. On the 
17th November the Entente Ministers actually 
telegraphed to their Governments advocating 
a promise to Bulgaria of Macedonia up to 
the 1912 line and immediate occupation of 
the district east of the River Vardar. Three 
days later a reply arrived to the effect that 
immediate occupation was impossible, and 
that nothing precise could be promised. The 
Russian Minister was told by M. Sazonoff 
that vagueness should be tried first and more 
substantial proposals submitted at a later 

that was not EngJish, and so this shot seems to me 
symbolical. Your own island country has been shot 
through your esteemed jaw, Mr. Noel Buxton. I know 
that it is brutal, but with all my heart I hope that it 
may do you and old England good." 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 77 

date. Traditional diplomacy, in fact, main- 
tained its reputation for following the most 
belated, ineffective, and undignified course. 

The following memorandum, submitted to 
Sir Edward Grey in January 1915, is given 
in full as a summary of the Balkan situation 
written at the time from personal knowledge :— 

MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED TO SIR EDWARD 
GREY BY MESSRS. N, AND C. R. BUXTON. 

Immediate Dangers. 

The uncertain attitude of Bulgaria constitutes a 
loss to the Entente, (a) It provides Rumania and 
Greece with a pretext for not entering into the war, 
so that pressure cannot be put on these Powers to 
induce them to move, (b) Serbia is compelled to 
keep troops on the Eastern frontier and in Mace- 
donia, where the railway is guarded by sentries 
every few hundred yards, (c) We lose the military 
advantages which might be gained from the co- 
operation of Bulgaria herself. The three armies 
now inactive exceed 1,100,000 trained men. 

Again, there is still a danger of Bulgaria entering 
the war on the other side. The situation is not 
secure. So lately as the end of November it was 
generally thought at Sofia that Bulgaria might at 
any moment be forced to take the side of Austria. 
The pressure has been removed by the successes of 
the Serbians, but a similar situation is likely soon 
to arise again. 



78 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

The state of Macedonia provides a constant tempta- 
tion to Bulgaria to respond to the urgent pressure 
of Austria and to attack Serbia. 

It is sometimes thought that Rumania and Greece 
constitute a guarantee against a Bulgarian attack 
on Serbia. In our view it is highly probable that if 
Bulgaria made such an attack, Greece and Rumania, 
who have nothing further to gain at Bulgaria's 
expense, would consider it their interest to remain 
neutral. The Bulgarian army might therefore, at 
any moment, be free to co-operate with the Austrian 
armies, and to exercise a very prejudicial effect 
on the general military situation of the Entente 
by placing Berlin in direct communication with 
Constantinople. 

Future Dangers. 

Looking to the interests of peace in the future, 
it seems certain that those interests cannot be secured 
so long as the claims of Bulgaria remain entirely 
unsatisfied, particularly in Serbian Macedonia ; 
Bulgaria will always have the means of creating a 
movement in her favour. 

It is contended that the Bulgarian sentiment of the 
Macedonian population can be made to give way 
to another national sentiment in a short time. Our 
study of Macedonia during fifteen years past con- 
vinces us that this is untrue. It is a question, not 
of blood or language, but of political and ecclesias- 
tical sympathies. A conspicuous proof of this lies 
in the fact that the violent persecution carried on 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 79 

by Greeks and Serbs with Turkish help between 
1903 and 1908 did not avail to alter the sympathies 
of the peasants. Another proof is, that the Bul- 
garians have always been ready to accept the creation 
of an autonomous Macedonia, confident that if the 
wishes of the people were consulted the government 
would be Bulgarian. 

There is no Serbian movement in Macedonia 
corresponding in intensity or in persistence with 
the exarchist movement. 

It has led numbers of Bulgarians of property and 
influence in Macedonia to sacrifice their position, 
endure long imprisonment, or devote their lives to 
organization in comparative poverty. 

In regard to Serbian Macedonia, Serbian officials 
admit they have had the greatest difficulty in 
securing recruits and in staffing the schools, the 
great majority of which were previously staffed by 
Bulgarians. 

The widespread maladministration of the Serbian 
officials which comes to the notice of the British 
and Russian consuls arises in the main from the 
disaffection of the population. 

It may be also pointed out that to leave Macedonia 
under a rule which does not represent the wishes of 
the majority of the people is inconsistent with the 
declared intentions of the British Government in 
regard to the principle of nationality. 

The above views are confirmed by the exodus of 
a large part of the Macedonian population into 
Bulgaria and also into Greece. 



80 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

Again, if the war is not completely successful in 
the Eastern theatre, there is a danger that unsettled 
questions of nationality relating to all the Balkan 
States will lead to another war, and such complete 
success can hardly be secured without Bulgaria's 
co-operation. 

Possibility of an Arrangement. 

(a) For securing Bulgaria's friendly neutrality, so 
as to set Greece and Rumania free for 
military action. 

It is held by some that the evils of the present 
situation are incurable. After spending four months 
in Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, we have 
come to the conclusion that this is untrue. We 
suggest below the terms which, while not unjust to 
Serbia, constitute the minimum terms on which 
Bulgaria could be induced to range herself on the 
side of the Entente, i.e. to adopt such an attitude 
of friendly neutrality as has been adopted by Greece. 
Bulgaria might, e.g., commit herself to allowing the 
passage of war material and troops to Serbia. Such 
an attitude would remove the obstacle which now 
tends to prevent Rumania and Greece from actively 
helping the Entente, and would completely liberate 
Serbia's forces. Bulgaria's adhesion for these pur- 
poses can, we think, be secured without deahng 
with Bulgaria's dispute with Rumania about the 
Dobrudja, or with Greece about Kavalla. 

We suggest that a declaration should be made 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 81 

by the Governments of the Entente in conformity 
with the following conditions : — 

(i) The arrangement contemplated must be dic- 
tated from without. It is quite unreasonable 
to expect the Balkan States to settle the 
problem by mutual concession. None of 
the peoples concerned would allow their 
Governments to cede territory voluntarily ; 
but to accept the terms of the Entente is 
a different matter. 

(2) England must take an equally prominent part 

with France and Russia in dictating the 
terms. In Bulgaria little confidence is felt 
in Russia or France, owing to the events 
of 1913. 

(3) The arrangements proposed must be precise 

and not vague. 

(4) The declaration must be communicated in 

substance to the leaders of the Opposition 

in Bulgaria. 
It is suggested that the intentions of the Triple 
Entente should be declared on the following lines, 
viz., that in the event of victory by the Entente — 
(i) Serbia shall receive Bosnia, Herzegovina, and 

access to the sea in Dalmatia. 
(2) Serbia shall in that case cede to Bulgaria 

Macedonian territory up to the minimum 

secured to Bulgaria by the Serbo-Bulgarian 

Treaty of 1912. 
(b) For inducing Bulgaria to attack Turkey. 
* . 6 



82 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

For this purpose it may be necessary to deal with 
the question of Ka valla. In any case, for a perma- 
nently peaceful settlement, this will be essential. If 
the transfer of Ka valla (at the end of the war) should 
be decided on, it should be done in conjunction with 
a promise of Smyrna — conditional, of course, on 
the victory of the Entente. A Greek Premier would 
represent this transaction to his Parliament as a 
brilliant diplomatic success for Greece. 

Considerations Regarding Serbia. 

It is said that Serbia is unwilling to cede territory. 
In reply it may be said that Serbia would not be 
asked to make territorial concessions voluntarily, 
which of course cannot be expected. Her Govern- 
ment would be in a position to say to the Skupshtina 
that it was merely accepting the terms imposed by 
Russia and her allies. 

The strong objection felt in Serbia to any concession 
arises from the general belief that the proposed 
arrangement involves precise promises to Bulgaria 
without correspondingly precise promises to Serbia. 
But we have found many Serbs ready to admit 
that it is to Serbia's advantage to obtain promises 
from the Entente, and that it is worth while to 
concur in promises to Bulgaria in order to make 
their own future more secure. Many leading Serbs 
feel that it is more true to Serbia's traditions to 
keep her eyes on the glories of a United Serbia (as 
indicated in M. Passich's recent declaration) than to 
sacrifice the latter for a part of Macedonia. 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 83 

Serbian access to the sea, as suggested above, 
does not clash with any claim seriously advanced 
on the part of Italy. 

The view is widely held that large concessions 
must be made. A prominent Foreign Office official, 
for instance, said to us privately that the Ishtib 
and Kochana district represented the " minimum *' 
that would have to be ceded to Bulgaria. 

They do not deny that the interests of the Entente 
must be considered, because Serbia would have been 
annihilated without Russia's aid, and that the 
Entente's interest ought not to be sacrificed by 
Serbia's opposition to an arrangement. 

It is alleged that the Serbian army would be chilled, 
and has in fact been chilled, by the prospect of 
pressure from the Entente. The recent victories 
prove that this was not the case, but in any case a 
scheme which helped to bring in Rumania to the 
aid of Serbia, and which removed the danger coming 
from Bulgaria, would be the best service to the 
Serbian army. 

It is questionable whether the recruitment in 
Macedonia has not been, on the whole, a source of 
weakness rather than of strength to Serbia. It is 
significant that the argument from sentiment, of 
which so much has been made in England, viz., 
the view that an ally ought not to be asked 
during the war to make any concessions, was 
never insisted upon, or even raised, by Serbians 
in conversation with us. It is admitted by Serbs 
that in the critical stages of a war considerations 



84 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

of a sentimental kind must give way to practical 
necessities. 

The interests of Serbia, rightly viewed, are bound 
up in the success of the Entente as a whole. The 
question is indeed sometimes asked by Serbians : 
** Why should Serbia be called upon to make con- 
cessions, when no similar demand is made on Greece 
or Rumania ? " The answer is that Bulgaria's 
adhesion can be obtained without touching the 
relations of Greece and Rumania. It is a simple 
question of military necessity. 

Considerations Regarding Greece. 

The Greek Government objects to any cession of 
Serbian Macedonia to Bulgaria. Its point of view 
is that this would involve a strengthening of Bulgaria 
without any corresponding strengthening of Greece. 
Alone of the Balkan States, Greece adheres rigidly 
to the Treaty of Bukarest, which she regards as 
enshrining the principle of the equilibrium. She 
even blames Rumania for concurring in Serbia's 
wilHngness to concede and for regarding the Treaty 
as superseded. 

The objections of Greece are, to this extent, well 
founded, that Greece herself has not yet obtained 
any guarantee of further expansion ; her objections 
in this respect are similar to those of Serbia and 
Rumania, but her politics are not governed by the 
same broad outlook as those of Serbia. There is a 
reaction from the former ideal of uniting the Greeks 
of Asia Minor in '' Megale Hellas," which is due 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 85 

largely to the cost of the recent wars. The question 
of the Asiatic Greeks is looked upon as a problem 
which it will require another war to solve. The 
present opportunity is viewed as " coming too soon." 
King Constantine expresses the hope for a more 
convenient war in the near future. The outlook of 
Greek politicians is limited for the present to Balkan 
States within their present frontier, and this being 
the case it is natural that they should regard any 
accession of territory to Bulgaria as involving risks 
of making Bulgaria too strong. In a true view of 
the probable future of the Balkan States it must be 
realized that Serbia may well have a population of 
10,000,000, Rumania 10,000,000, Greece 8,000,000, 
and Bulgaria only 5,000,000. Yet M. Venizelos 
states that his opposition to concessions is based 
on the balance of numbers. 

With regard to the immediate strategic danger 
involved in the Bulgarian occupation of Monastir, 
a continuance of the present Serbian occupation 
might be no less dangerous. So long as Serbia remains 
at Monastir she has a motive for coveting Salonika. 
Balkan alliances are short-lived. There is already 
friction between Greece and Serbia. It is always 
possible that Serbia and Bulgaria might form an 
alliance against Greece with a view to taking Salonika 
and Kavalla respectively. Greeks in the highest 
position already contemplate this possibility. 

In the case of Greece there is a general belief that 
her present frontiers with Bulgaria will be recog- 
nized whether she assists the Entente or not. There 



se BALKAN PROBLEMS 

is, therefore, no motive for removing the friction 
with Bulgaria, while the maintenance of the friction 
provides an excuse for not going to war. 

The true solution of the problem of Balkan unity, 
so far as Greece is concerned, would seem to lie in 
encouraging Greece to look for expansion outside 
the Balkan Peninsula, and in promising to her definite 
acquisitions in Asia Minor. The objection of the 
Greek Government, as M. Venizelos admits, has been 
based on the assumption that the territorial problem 
is limited to European soil. An essential factor in 
a scheme for the establishment of ultimate unity 
in the Balkans is the recognition and definition of 
Greek claims in Asia. M. Venizelos explicitly stated, 
in confidence, that his objection to Serbian concessions 
is due to his fear of Bulgarian superiority in military 
strength, and chiefly in point of population. He 
said that if Thrace were not ceded to Bulgaria he 
had no objections to Serbian concessions in Serbian 
Macedonia ; while if Greece was assured of accessions 
in Asia he would view the question of Bulgarian 
accessions, both in Serbian Macedonia and in Thrace, 
in an entirely new light. 

Greek claims in the vilayet of Smyrna do not 
clash with those of Italy, which refer to Adalia and 
the Dodecanese. 

Considerations Regarding Bulgaria. 
It is said that Bulgaria would not accept the 
proposals made. 
It is true that the Radoslavoff Government came 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 87 

into ojffice as an Austrophil Government, and that 
the King is regarded as having Austrian sympathies. 
But the position of the Government is very unstable, 
depending on a majority of fifteen, and its super- 
session by an opposition or a coaHtion Government 
without a General Election is an admitted possibility. 

The elements in the country which would support 
a pro-Entente policy are very powerful. Popular 
feehng for Russia as the liberator of Bulgaria, and 
for England as her subsequent protector, is extremely 
strong. The Opposition bloc is well organized, and 
contains many more men of high standing than 
the Government party. The only weakness of the 
Opposition in their strenuous efforts to promote a 
pro-Entente policy has been that they could not 
point to any precise advantage in territorial com- 
pensation which such a policy would bring. If they 
could point to a promise of the Treaty of 1912 line, 
it is certain that the hands of the Government would 
be forced. There is no proof of definite engage- 
ments between Bulgaria and Austria ; on the con- 
trary, M. Radoslavoff has studiously left the way 
open for a change of front. 

It is important to realize the great effect produced 
on public opinion by the events of last year, when 
Bulgaria, whether owing to her own fault or not, 
was attacked by four enemies at once, and when 
the Treaty of London, the Protocol of Petrograd, 
and the Treaty with Serbia of 1912 were all contra- 
vened. There is a general want of faith in diplo- 
matic engagements, and a feehng that Bulgaria's 



88 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

just claim involves an extension of her present 
territory on four frontiers. But in dealing with 
Bulgarians we have, of course, endeavoured to 
minimize this claim to the utmost, and in our sug- 
gestions have put forward the minimum terms for 
which the adhesion of Bulgaria can be secured. 

General Objections. 

The main objections raised to the policy of a 
simple declaration of the terms of the Entente and 
of definite promises are — 

(i) That Serbia might be disheartened, or even 
make terms with Austria, and that Greece 
might refuse to give military aid when 
called upon. 

The real test of the soundness of this objection is 
not what a Prime Minister says at a time when he 
is holding out for the highest terms, but what state- 
ment he would be able to make to his own people. 
The points which could be made in such statements 
are indicated above, in our notes on Serbia and 
Greece respectively. 

(2) That it savours of absurdity to promise territory 
which we have not yet acquired. 

This objection has already been overruled, since 
territorial promises have been made both to Serbia 
and Bulgaria. 

Germany and Austria have already made definite 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 89 

promises, and these are not regarded as absurd, 
their conditional character being understood. 

(3) That the declaration suggested might not at 
once secure Bulgaria's adhesion. 

This objection might appropriately be raised in 
time of peace, but the grave issues at stake, involving 
one of the largest factors in the conduct of the war, 
necessitate the taking of some degree of risk. The 
present situation is very dangerous, and it is a 
question of balancing one risk against another. 

Apart from Russia's vacillating attitude, 
the failure of the Entente to press home its 
efforts to obtain Bulgarian co-operation in 
November 1914 seems to have been due 
principally to the fear of alienating Serbia and 
Greece. The inference is that the Balkan 
question had never been envisaged as a whole. 

Indeed, so late as December 1914 the 
Greek Government was allowed to remain 
under the impression that there was no pros- 
pect of territorial compensations for Greece 
in Asia Minor. Soon afterwards, M. Venizelos 
raised the subject with the British Minister, 
and in January 1915 an offer of the Smyrna 
district was made. The Entente's assumption 
that Greece would be alienated if the concession 
of Kavalla to Bulgaria were insisted upon 



90 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

now proved to be unfounded. M. Venizelos 
actually made this proposal, although under 
no pressure from the Entente, and his inability 
to plead force majeure contributed very largely 
to his downfall in the spring of 1915.^ 

During March and April, at dinners arranged 

I On the nth January 1915 M. Venizelos wrote to King 
Constantine : " We ought before all to withdraw our 
objections to concessions on the part of Serbia to Bulgaria, 
even if such concessions extend beyond the right bank 
of the Vardar. But if these are not sufficient to induce 
Bulgaria to co-operate with her former allies, or at least 
to maintain a benev^olent neutrality towards them, I 
should not hesitate — painful though the necessity would 
be — to advise the sacrifice of Kavalla to save Hellenism 
in Turkey and to assure the creation of a really great 
Greece, including almost all the regions where Hellenism 
has held sway during its long history through the 
ages." Six days later he wrote again to the King : " The 
cession of Kavalla is indeed a very painful sacrifice. 
. . . But I do not hesitate to propose it when I consider 
the national compensations which would be assured to 
us by this sacrifice. I am of the opinion that the conces- 
sions in Asia Minor, upon which Sir Edward Grey has 
made overtures to us, would assume — especially if we 
made sacrifices to Bulgaria — such an extent that a 
Greece as great and certainly not poorer would be added 
to the Greece already doubled by two victorious wars." 
M. Zographos, Greek Foreign Minister, stated the case 
of the anti-Venizelos party in an interview accorded to 
Le Petit Parisien and reported in The Times, 19th April 
1915 : " I am of the opinion that a people should in 
no circumstances barter its patrimony or voluntarily 
abandon an inch of its territory." (Authors' italics.) 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 91 

by a third party, unofficial conversations took 
place between the Bulgarian Minister in 
London and an important member of the 
Cabinet who had taken a prominent part in 
advocating energetic action in 1914. In April, 
as a result of these communications, the 
Bulgarian representative was invited by the 
Minister in question to telegraph to his Govern- 
ment an attractive proposal, which was un- 
doubtedly adequate for obtaining Bulgaria's 
adhesion. When the Bulgarian Government 
replied making a request for a definite state- 
ment of the Entente's intentions and saying 
that it would then come to a decision, the 
proposal was not adhered to by the Cabinet, 
and after a long delay a cold answ^er was 
returned. Such an experience was enough to 
discredit and discourage the pro-Entente parties 
at vSofia, and it is perhaps, even by itself, a 
sufficient answer to the charge that Bulgaria 
had no justification for mistrusting the 
Allies. 

The success of the Russian army in the 
Carpathians about this time made a strong 
impression on the Bulgarian Government, 
which began to contemplate the possibility 
of immediate adhesion to the Entente. The 
launching of the Dardanelles expedition and 
the knowledge that Italy's entry into the 



92 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

war was imminent added to its anxiety. 
Throughout this period M. Radoslavoff pro- 
mised the Opposition that he would join 
the Entente Powers as soon as he received 
satisfactory proposals. 

The breach of the Russian line at Dunajetz 
and the check sustained by the Dardanelles 
expedition at last provoked the Entente to 
fresh overtures to Bulgaria through the 
official channel. On the 29th May the four 
Entente Powers (Italy was now included) 
despatched a Note to the Bulgarian Govern- 
ment to which it made the following declara- 
tions if Bulgaria agreed to attack Turkey : — 

" (i) The Allied Powers agree to the imme- 
diate occupation by Bulgaria of 
Thrace up to the Enos-Midia line, 
which shall become Bulgarian terri- 
tory. 

" (2) The Allied Powers guarantee to Bul- 
garia at the end of the war possession 
of the part of Macedonia, limited 
on the north and west by the line 
Egri-Palanka, Sopot on the Vardar, 
and Ochrida, including the towns of 
Egri-Palanka, Ochrida, and Monastir, 
and on the south and east by the 
present Serbo-Greek and Serbo-Bul- 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 93 

garian frontiers. This promise is 
subject to the following conditions : — 

" {a) Serbia shall receive equitable com- 
pensation in Bosnia, Herzegovina, 
and on the Adriatic coast. 

'' {b) Bulgaria shall make no attempt to 
occupy any part of the above- 
mentioned territory until the con- 
clusion of peace. 

" (3) The Allied Powers pledge themselves 
to use all their efforts with the 
Hellenic Government in order to 
assure the cession of Kavalla to 
Bulgaria. The AlHed Powders needing 
for this purpose to be in a position 
to offer Greece equitable compensa- 
tions in Asia Minor, the Bulgarian 
army must go into action against 
Turkey. 

'' (4) The Allied Powers are disposed to 
look with favour upon the negotia- 
tions which Bulgaria and Rumania 
may desire to open for the settlement 
of the question of the Dobrudja. 

'' (5) The Allied Powers pledge themselves 
finally to give to Bulgaria all the 
financial assistance which she may 
require.'' 



94 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

These proposals marked a considerable 
advance. They embraced the Bulgarian ques- 
tion in all its aspects and made some approach 
to a territorial settlement on the principle 
of nationality, but they were afflicted with 
the disease which is often congenital in the 
offspring of diplomacy — vagueness and inde- 
cision at every critical point where the opposite 
was required. 

The Bulgarian Government was being asked 
to do something of a very definite character, 
and it replied by requesting the Entente to 
state precisely the extent to which the compen- 
sation promised to Serbia and Greece would 
have to be realized before Bulgaria's aspirations 
as regards Macedonia and Kavalla could be 
satisfied. It also enquired the views of the 
Entente concerning the principles of the 
settlement of the Dobrudjan question which 
it desired to promote between Bulgaria and 
Rumania. The Bulgarian reply was dated the 
14th June 1915 ; up to the 3rd August no 
answer had been returned. The outcry of the 
Serbian chauvinists discouraged the Entente, 
and nothing further was done to meet 
Bulgaria's demands. 

After this date King Ferdinand and M. 
Radoslavoff veered to the side of the Central 
Powers, but the temper of public opinion was 



THE DIPLOMATIC AUCTION 95 

still so predominantly pro-Entente that they 
did not dare to commit themselves until the 
6th September 1915. The general mobiliza- 
tion of the army which followed on the 21st 
September was only eftected by the assiduous 
dissemination of the report that Bulgarian 
neutrality was threatened by the prospect of 
an Austro-German advance across Serbia to- 
wards Constantinople. Mr. O'Beirne, who was 
appointed British Minister at Sofia in the 
spring of 1915, and whose tragic loss with Lord 
Kitchener was such a heavy one to the diplo- 
matic service, insisted that Bulgaria's final 
decision to fight against the Allies was only 
taken when Russia presented an ultimatum on 
the 4th October summoning her to break off 
relations with the Central Powers within 
twenty-four hours. On the following day the 
Allied troops landed at Salonika ; and on 
the 7th October, Bulgaria's reply being 
deemed unsatisfactory, diplomatic relations 
were severed. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE RESULTS OF "MUDDLING 
THROUGH" 

The salient features of the Entente's policj^ 
—-or lack of policy — in the Balkans down to 
the autumn of 191 5 may now be summarized. 
When the war began, the eyes of England 
and France were naturally focused on the 
Western theatre. It was only after many 
months that interest began to be aroused by 
the exploits and sufferings of Serbia. It was 
evident from the first to those familiar with 
the Near East that Serbian aspirations could 
only be permanently realized if the Balkan 
States worked together, and that events would 
thwart Sir Edward Grey's policy of keeping 
them out of the w^ar because one of Germany's 
main objects was to establish a corridor 
through the Balkans to the East. The Allies 
held the trump cards, for the best opportunity 
for every Balkan State to achieve its unifica- 
tion lay in help from the Allies at the expense 
of Turkey and Austria. With difficulty mutual 

96 



"MUDDLING THROUGH" 97 

agreement might have been arranged among 
the States lately engaged in bitterest strife ; 
at the least, a fair scheme of claims based on 
the wishes of the population, if held out as a 
reward by the Entente Powers with an appear- 
ance of sincerity and with definite under- 
takings, would have had irresistible attraction 
not only for Bulgaria, but also for Greece 
and Rumania. 

The so-called '* pro-Bulgars,'' far from being 
deceived by Bulgaria, insisted that, although 
Bulgaria might be won, she would, if not 
fairly treated, try to get her rights from 
the other side. Allied diplomacy, however, 
thought such action too difficult. It exerted 
no comprehensive activity, but at intervals 
made isolated efforts to please one State or 
another by promises, some of which proved 
only contradictory and embarrassing to action 
in another direction demanded by circum- 
stances a little later. Such S3^mpathy as 
existed in England took spasmodic and antag- 
onistic forms. The school which desired to 
see the whole matter dealt with as of vital 
importance, and as requiring the recognition 
of the rights of Bulgaria, because through 
her geographical position and military strength 
she held the key to the situation, had to contend 
with the unthinking excitement of " pro- 

7 



08 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

Serbian " feeling, which tended merely to the 
blind adoption of the point of view of one 
Balkan State alone. The peculiar tragedy 
lay in the fact that this undoubtedly altruistic 
passion actually prevented the salvation of 
Serbia herself — the very country which it 
desired to save. The Foreign Office, though 
w^arned repeatedly of the certaint}^ that 
Bulgaria, if not dealt with by the Entente, 
would be forced to resort to Germany with 
disastrous results for Serbia, hesitated under 
the influence of rival pressures, and sought 
safety in not committing itself to either policy, 
thus irritating both sides at once. 

The entry of Bulgaria into the ranks of 
the Central Powers was a decisive event in 
the history of the war. From the diplomatic 
point of view it reflected nothing but discredit 
upon the Allies, a discredit which is only 
very partially extenuated by the difliculties 
of co-ordinating the policies of London, Paris, 
Petrograd, and Rome. The idea that Bulgaria 
was from the first committed to our enemies 
led to a policy of conciliating King Constantine 
of Greece and his faction, with the result 
that M. Venizelos' plan of buying Bulgaria 
by ceding Kavalla was made to appear a 
treasonable proposal, a proposal to give up 
the soil of Greece without necessity. M. 



'MUDDLING THROUGH" 99 

Venizelos saw the Balkan problem as a whole, 
but the Entente would not help him through 
by dictating a settlement. Thus the great 
statesman of modern Greece was driven into 
exile, and King Constantine's policy of treacher- 
ously harassing the Allies was given a further 
lease of life. If we look at the question as 
a matter of loyalty to our friends, we shall 
have to admit that as large a section of opinion 
was unfriendly to us in Greece as in Bulgaria. 
The idea that Greece should be conciliated 
rather than Bulgaria with a view to getting 
Greek help in forcing the Dardanelles could 
never have been tolerated for a moment if 
any attempt had been made to co-ordinate 
diplomacy and strategy. The sentimental 
argument, however, was mainly founded on 
the assumption that the so-called pro-Bulgarian 
policy was anti-Serbian. The true fact of 
the case is that it was the only real method 
of helping Serbia immediately and effectively. 
It was largely a question whether Serbia should 
be flattered or benefited, and those who 
knew the Serbians and invited sympathy for 
them years before their new and noisy advo- 
cates, desired to see Serbia not flattered by 
promises, but saved by deeds. 

From a military point of view the failure 
of the Allied diplomacy in the Balkans was 



100 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

a disaster of the first magnitude. The defection 
of Bulgaria sealed the doom of the Dardanelles 
Expedition, and left Serbia without help from 
her Allies against the great Austro-German 
drive in the autumn of 1915. It gave the 
Central Empires control of the corridor to 
the East and enabled German munitions and 
German officers to be despatched to the 
assistance of the Turkish forces in Palestine 
and Mesopotamia. Most decisive of all, it 
put an end to every hope of opening up 
communications between Russia and her 
Western Allies. 

There is little value now in speculating to 
what extent command of the route from the 
iEgean to the Black wSea would have influenced 
the course of the war on the Eastern front. 
It is at least possible, however, that the Allies 
could have supplied arms, munitions, and 
equipment in quantities which would have 
maintained the fighting efficiency of the Rus- 
sian army. It is even just conceivable that 
in such circumstances the Russian Revolution 
would not have occurred as soon as it did 
— perhaps not at all. One thing, however, 
is incontrovertible — if Bulgaria had been 
gained for the Entente in the autumn of 1915 
the war could not have lasted for three years 
longer. 



"MUDDLING THEOUGH'' 101 

In the Balkans lay the Entente's sole 
opportunity of an early and crushing victory. 
The importance of seizing it at once and 
turning it to good account was urged repeatedly 
by statesmen and politicians, soldiers and 
publicists, whose only common aim was speedy 
victory. Mr. Lloyd George in England and 
M. Miliukoff, one of the leaders of the Cadet 
party in Russia, strove their utmost to stimu- 
late energetic diplomatic action for the purpose 
of bringing Bulgaria in on the side of the 
Entente. Journalists of the calibre of Mr. 
J. L. Garvin, editor of the Observer, added 
their support. The efforts of these influential 
authorities were not altogether relaxed even 
after Bulgaria entered the war on the side 
of the Central Powers. ^ 

^ Mr. Garvin's attitude is clearly indicated by the 
following letter : — 

Mr. J. L. Garvin to Mr. Noel Buxton. 

" Observer Office, 

gth December t 1915. 
" Dear Buxton, 

"... I am most firmly of the view that a 
strong and wise foreign policy, supported by equivalent 
military action, could secure Bulgaria even yet without 
prejudice in any respect to the honour and existing 
engagements of the Allies. 

" Yours sincerely, 

'* J. L. Garvin." 



102 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

The question of detaching Bulgaria from 
the enemy hloc first arose in a practical form 
in August 1916. It was then decided by the 
Allies that, whether the Bulgarian advances 
were genuine or not, it was preferable to 
reject them and to continue the policy of 
cutting the German corridor by military 
pressure in the hope of joining up with the 
Russian armies. 

The proposal that an attempt should be 
made to break up the alliance of the Central 
Powers took a new complexion as a result 
of the change of policy in Russia which 
followed the revolution of March 1917. M. 
Miliukoff, who had become Russian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, allowed his view that 
efforts should be made to detach Bulgaria 
to be known even in public, and the Bulgarian 
Government, to the disgust of the Germans, 
permitted it to appear in the Bulgarian Press. 
In France, too, detachment was being fully 
discussed at the time. In La Victoire, for 
instance, M. Gustave Herve kept urging the 
point ever since the Russian crisis. Mr. Bonar 
Law, in the House of Commons on the 14th 
May, stated that ''no blow would seem so fatal 
to the Germans as the detachment of one of 
their Allies." Thus public feeling in the 
Entente countries was beginning to look 



"MUDDLING THROUGH" 103 

favourably upon the idea of inducing Bulgaria 
to break with Germany, the real enemy. 

The military advantages to be derived from 
the successful execution of the scheme are 
obvious. The corridor to the East would be 
cut and Turkey would become comparatively 
helpless ; the situation of our forces at Salonika 
and in Palestine and Mesopotamia would be 
enormously strengthened. The advantages in 
regard to tonnage, transport, and the sub- 
marine problem in general, which had now 
reached an acute stage, are sufficiently evident. 
Last, and not least, the defection of Bulgaria 
from her Allies would provide an opportunity, 
if a belated one, of retrieving the failure of 
the Dardanelles expedition ; and Russia might 
still be saved. 

Many reasons could be urged in support 
of the view that Bulgaria would be disposed 
to consider the proposal. Whatever other 
considerations may have weighed with King 
Ferdinand and his advisers in taking up arms 
on the side of the Central Powers, the nation 
thought of nothing but Macedonia. Indeed, 
Mr. J. D. Bourchier, the late Times corre- 
spondent in the Balkans, whose knowledge of 
the peoples and politics of the Near East is 
almost unique, stated that '' unquestionably 
the bulk of the community would have pre- 



104 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

ferred to effect the liberation of the kindred 
race with the aid of Russia and the Western 
Powers/' In his view, and he was in Sofia 
when Bulgaria entered the war, it was only 
by maintaining martial law and a vigorous 
Press censorship, while encouraging an active 
German propaganda and winking at a liberal 
distribution of German gold among the 
politicians and the Macedonians, that the 
party in power succeeded in stifling the views 
of the people, and in spreading the belief 
that Macedonia could only be rescued with 
the aid of the Central Powers. By the spring 
of 1917 Bulgaria had gained everything in 
Macedonia she desired. There was no con- 
ceivable inducement for her to continue the 
war for the advancement of the German 
Oriental policy, the success of which would 
reduce her to the undignified position of a 
corridor State. If she could be assured that 
the victory of the Entente w^ould not entail 
the restoration of Macedonia to alien rule, 
there was good ground for believing that she 
might be induced to desert the Central Powers. 
The latter could never give her the Enos- 
Midia line, and, indeed, it has even been said 
that many Bulgarians suspected a secret pact 
between Germany and the Porte for the resti- 
tution of the Maritza valley to Turkey. More- 



''MUDDLING THROUGH" 105 

over, in view of the command of the sea enjoyed 
by the Entente it was a practical impossibility 
that Bulgaria could ever obtain Kavalla 
without their consent. 

Influenced by these considerations, and in 
particular by the changed attitude of the 
new^ Russian Government, the Entente initiated 
informal conversations with the representatives 
of Bulgaria in Switzerland during the early 
summer of 1917. The causes which made 
them ineffective still remain obscure. It may 
be that the Western Powders only undertook 
them at the instance of M. Miliukoff, and that 
the dow^nfall of the Government of which he 
was a member left them free to follow their 
own policy. The soundness of this explanation, 
however, is open to question. It would be 
more reasonable to suppose that the military 
collapse of Russia would have stimulated 
rather than hindered the attempt to break 
up the hostile alliance. Perhaps a more 
probable explanation is that the diplomacy 
of the Entente was still spasmodic and unco- 
ordinated, and that it had not been decided 
whether the detachment policy should be 
concentrated upon Bulgaria or upon Austria- 
Hungary. 

Opposition to the policy of detachment 
consisted usually in the assertion that Bulgaria 



IOC BALKAN PROBLEMS 

could not be induced to forsake Germany until 
the latter was beaten. The course of the 
war in its latter stages established the fallacy 
of this contention, for Bulgaria had to admit 
defeat and accept an armistice dictated by 
the Allies while the military fate of Germany 
was still hanging in the balance. 



/ 



PART III 
THE BALKANS AND THE FUTURE 



CHAPTER VII 

THE TERRITORIAL ASPECT OF A 
LASTING SETTLEMENT 

Any Balkan settlement, conceived as a 
whole, can only follow one of two alternative 
general outlines. It may be based either on 
the distribution of the spoils of war among 
the Balkan States which have supported the 
Alhes, or on the recognition of the right of 
the inhabitants of disputed areas to deter- 
mine their own destinies. If the problem is 
regarded from the point of view of lasting 
peace in the Balkans and in Europe, the 
considerations which should count most in 
determining the choice are practically self- 
evident. 

The Allies, and especially Great Britain 
and the United States of America, consistently 
placed the rights of small nationalities in the 
forefront of their war -aims. During the 
armistice negotiations they explicitly adopted 
nationality and self-determination as the 
guiding principles of the final settlement. In 

109 



110 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

some quarters, however, it is still urged that 
Bulgaria must be punished for her '* treachery/' 
Those who employ this argument shut their 
e3^es to the fact that it was the shortcomings 
of Allied diplomacy which enabled Germany 
and Austria to turn to their own ends the 
burning desire of Bulgarians to redress the 
universally admitted injustices of the Treaty 
of Bukarest, by which regions known to be 
Bulgarian in sympathy were subjected to 
Greece and Rumania, and on a still larger 
scale to Serbia. Any punishment which might 
be meted out by the Allies would fall, not 
upon the Bulgarians, whose Government 
was persuaded to fight against us, but 
upon Macedonians and Dobrudjans, whose 
only crime is their desire to be included 
in the Bulgarian State. Bulgarian resent- 
ment against Serbia and Greece would be 
perpetuated, and would lead to a rapproche- 
ment with Italy, whose designs in Dalmatia, 
Southern Albania, and Asia Minor conflict 
with Serbian and Greek ambitions. The 
dependence of Greece upon French capital 
would bring that country into close pohtical 
relations with France, while Serbia and 
Rumania would gravitate in the same direction 
owing to their possession of territory inhabited 
by people of Bulgarian nationality. A new 



THE TERRITORIAL ASPECT 111 

'' balance of power " of this kind would be as 
great a danger to the peace of Europe in the 
future as Austro-Russian rivalry w^as in the 
past. There would still be troubled waters 
in which the Central Powers could fish.^ 

The objection that Bulgaria must be punished 
because she fought against the Alhes will not 
bear examination. More than 6,000 sentences 
of death, pronounced and executed by military 
courts-martial during the war, bear witness 
to the pro-Entente sympathies of the Bul- 
garian people and the intensity of their hatred 
at being compelled to fight on the side of 
their ancient oppressors against Russia and 
the democracies of Western Europe. An 
American journalist, who is able to regard 
these events with an unbiassed mind, states 
the case against merely vindictive punishment 
with telling force. " The attitude of Bulgaria 
in 1915 is often compared with that of Greece 
in 1917, and it is asked why the Bulgarians 
did not get rid of their King as the Greeks 
did." He points out that MM. Gueshoff and 
Liaptcheff, leaders of the Bulgarian Opposition, 
pressed for the landing of an Allied force at 
Salonika, but were not listened to. He con- 
tinues : " But for the Allied blockade and 

' See Mr. H. N. Brailsford's article, " The Balance in 
the Balkans " {International Review, February 1919). 



112 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

the geographical position of Greece, which 
allowed M. Venizelos to play the part he 
did, Constantine w^ould have accomplished in 
Greece exactly what Ferdinand accomplished 
in Bulgaria — the more certainly since Con- 
stantine had the majority of the Greek people 
behind him, whilst the majority of the Bul- 
garian people were opposed to Ferdinand's 
policy. Hundreds of thousands of Poles, 
Tchecho-Slovaks, and Jugo-Slavs were com- 
pelled to fight for the Central Powers. Rumania 
herself concluded peace with them. Must 
Rumania be punished for the policy of 
Marghiloman ? Many thousands of Polish 
patriots welcomed the Central Powers as 
liberators of their country ; Poland is not 
to be punished for it. Are the Bulgarian 
people alone to be singled out for punishment 
on account of the policy of their King ? '' 

History has shown that nationalism in the 
Balkans cannot be suppressed. A settlement 
which disposes of living people as '* chattels,'' 
contrary to the wishes of the majority, is 
bound to be temporary. The configuration 
of the country in the most hotly disputed 
region, Macedonia, makes the complete sup- 
pression of armed bands a task beyond the 
physical capacity of any alien government, 
however efficient. Political assassinations. 



THE TERRITORIAL ASPECT 118 

sporadic revolts and open war would follow 
in inevitable sequence. Left to themselves, 
the Balkan States will undoubtedly impose 
another Treaty of Bukarest. It rests, therefore, 
with the Western European Powers to decide 
whether the settlement is to be a peace of 
justice or of revenge. Will they rise to a 
sense of their great responsibility or will the 
short-sighted self-seeking which prevailed in 
1878 prevail once more ? A settlement based 
on nationality and self-determination, with 
adequate provision of economic safeguards 
where necessary, is the only hope of estab- 
lishing permanent peace in the Near East, 

Owing to the inextricable interlacing of 
the various nationalities in many parts of 
the Peninsula, the difficulties in the way 
of the application of these principles are very 
great, although not insuperable. All that can 
be hoped of any frontier is that it will leave 
a minimum of grievances on both sides. But 
it is important that further adjustments on 
ethnographical lines should be made by means 
of a scheme for transmigration under the 
direct auspices of the League of Nations. 
Just as in other parts of Europe recourse has 
been had to the League for the settlement of 
critical problems turning mainly upon the 
control of transport routes and ports, so in 

8 



114 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

the Balkans it must be called in to devise 
and execute a sorting out of nationalities. 
The collapse of Turkish dominion in Europe, 
which renders this need most urgent, provides 
at the same time a unique opportunity for 
meeting it. Clearly the Balkan States them- 
selves are too much divided to be able to 
carry out any transmigration scheme except 
under the immediate control of the League. 
M. Venizelos has often expressed his enthusiasm 
for such a scheme. 

Whatever facilities are devised for encour- 
aging emigration and however well the fron- 
tiers are drawn, small and scattered groups 
of alien nationality will perforce be left in 
almost every Balkan State. Adequate pro- 
tection for these national minorities must be 
incorporated in the peace treaties by means 
of international guarantees for their religious, 
educational, and political freedom, under the 
sanction of the League of Nations. 

The disinterested application of the principle 
of nationality would bring to those Balkan 
States which have supported the Allies acces- 
sions of territory equal to their digestions, 
if not to their appetites. 

Serbia has already merged with Montenegro, 
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia, and 
Slavonia to form a compact Jugo-Slav State 



THE TERRITORIAL ASPECT 115 

with an excellent Adriatic seaboard from 
Fiume to Dulcigno. It also includes the 
preponderantly Serbian districts of the Banat. 

Rumania has incorporated the kindred 
province of Bessarabia, filched from her by 
Imperial Russia in 1878. On the principle 
of nationality she will gain in addition Tran- 
sylvania and the greater part of the Banat 
and the Bukovina. 

Greece would obtain all the islands, including 
Cyprus, and considerable portions of western 
Asia Minor, including the important town of 
Smyrna. 

The effect of these acquisitions would be 
to give Rumania a population of about 
14,000,000, Jugo-Slavia of about 12,000,000, 
and Greece of about 8,000,000. 

Albania, the one Balkan State which has 
not been a belligerent, would retain its frontiers 
as drawn in 1913, subject only to such altera- 
tions as an impartial Boundary Commission 
might find desirable. Probably only two 
noteworthy changes would be required : the 
towns and districts of Dibra (in the Contested 
Zone of 1913) and of Ipek and Diakovo 
(assigned to Montenegro in 1913) would perhaps 
be included in Albania. 

The Dobrudja, Macedonia, and the remnant 
of Turkey in Europe remain to be dealt with. 



116 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

The Dobrudja is peopled by Turks, Tatars, 
and Bulgarians, with a proportion of Rumanian 
colonists introduced since 1878. The region 
seems too small for autonomy, and there is 
a strong nationalistic movement among its 
Bulgarian inhabitants. Since Rumania has 
now incorporated the kindred province of 
Bessarabia w^ith its excellent port, Akerman, 
and since Russian control of the lower Danube 
is at an end, there is no good ground for 
denying to the Dobrudjans the opportunity 
of deciding their own fate by means of a 
plebiscite conducted by an impartial inter- 
national commission. If they voted for 
incorporation in Bulgaria, provision should be 
made for the purchase from Rumania of the 
harbour works and railways of Constanza, 
subject to guarantees of equality of treatment 
for Rumanian trade. A still better solution, 
if feasible, would be to place Constanza under 
international control. 

The ideal solution of the problem presented 
by Macedonia can only be reached by a 
plebiscite conducted by an impartial inter- 
national commission over the whole of the 
historical province of Macedonia. The Bul- 
garian sympathies of the mass of the Mace- 
donian population are apparent to every 
enquiring traveller. The parts of Macedonia 



THE TERRITORIAL ASPECT 117 

assigned to Greece and Serbia by the Treaty 
of Bukarest are unquestionabty not theirs 
on grounds of nationahty, and ought to be 
assigned solely on the results of a plebiscite. 
The plebiscite would allow the frontiers of 
Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria in Macedonia 
to be drawn with the maximum of justice to 
all parties. The proposals in the treaty with 
Germany regarding northern Schleswig and 
a part of East Prussia constitute an important 
precedent in favour of such a settlement. 
If, however, the frontiers are to be decided 
without a plebiscite, it is most important 
that the evidence should be taken of disin- 
terested witnesses with first-hand knowledge 
such as Sir Arthur Evans, Mr. J. D. Bourchier, 
Mr. H. N. Brailsford, Dr. G. B. Washburn, 
and the American missionaries in Macedonia. 

Alternatively, Macedonia should be granted 
complete autonomy under the League of 
Nations. 

Kavalla and Salonika have an importance 
as ports which overrides the wishes of their 
very mixed populations. In both cases the 
hinterland is mainly Bulgarian, and if the 
frontier is drawn so as to cut them off from 
it, they are wasted as ports, as was the case 
after the Treaty of Bukarest. L^nless Kavalla 
is given to Bulgaria, President Wilson's prin- 



118 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

ciple of freedom of access to the sea will be 
infringed. Salonika would have an adequate 
hinterland either as a port of the complete 
Bulgaria or as the capital of an autonomous 
Macedonia. Its European importance on one 
of the routes to the East renders some measure 
of international control eminently desirable. 
To cut Bulgaria off from the ^Egean would 
be to play into the hands of the Central 
Powers/ and to hamper British trade with 
the richest and most industrious of the Balkan 
countries. 

vSince Russia has renounced the secret treaty 
by which the Allies, fearing that she would 
make a separate peace, agreed to her acquiring 
Constantinople, it is generally admitted that 
the part of Thrace east of the Enos-Midia 
line, together with a strip of Asia Minor 
from the ^Egean to the Black Sea, should be 
placed under international control with guar- 
antees of complete freedom for the commerce 
of the world. If the only completely dis- 
interested Power — America — is averse from 
accepting a mandate for this territory, the 
most satisfactory solution would probably be 
to place it under the direct administration of 
the League of Nations. 

The desirability of assigning Thrace up to 
I See p. 38. 



THE TERRITORIAL ASPECT 119 

the Enos-Midia line to Bulgaria was admitted 
in 1913 by M. Venizelos, who thereby showed 
his appreciation of the fact that the Greek 
colonies in the centres of commerce in that 
region are too weak and too scattered to 
justify annexation by Greece. This arrange- 
ment was approved by all the Great Powers, 
but the outbreak of the second Balkan War 
prevented its execution. For ethnological and 
economic reasons it is to be hoped that this 
recent European decision will now be put 
into execution. 

A settlement of the kind just outlined is 
essential for the stabilization of Balkan affairs. 
Although it would demand the renunciation 
of certain Greek, Serbian, and Rumanian 
ambitions which have no ethnological justi- 
fication, it would apportion to those States — 
and to Albania as well — all the territory to 
which they are properly entitled, and give 
to the peoples of the Peninsula an opportunity 
they have never yet enjoyed of growing to 
their full stature as members of the comity 
of nations. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BALKANS AND THE LEAGUE 
OF NATIONS 

The adoption of the League of Nations 
Covenant by the Powers assembled in confer- 
ence to determine the conditions of peace 
marks an epoch in the progress of internation- 
ahsm. This is not the place to discuss the 
numerous criticisms with which the Covenant 
has been assailed by different schools of 
political thought, but the diplomatic history 
of the war in the Balkans has at least one 
direct bearing upon the question whether 
the League constitutes a real advance in 
international relationships. The series of 
failures recorded by Allied diplomacy in dealing 
with the Balkan problems was due at bottom 
to the traditions of short-sighted circumspec- 
tion which weighs small risks and ignores 
great ones, and of unwillingness to risk rebuff 
however slight, ingrained in time of peace. 
No one who has any direct knowledge of the 
methods and outlook of the European chan- 

120 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 121 

celleries, of the network of red-tape with which 
officialdom is surrounded, and of the jolts 
and jars with which the diplomatic machinery 
moves whenever action has to be taken, can 
doubt the importance of the creation of the 
League. 

However excellent may be the Near Eastern 
settlement which is now being drafted, its 
permanence will depend as much upon the 
measure of co-operation which it initiates 
among the Balkan States as upon the satis- 
faction which it gives to legitimate national 
aspirations. For some time, if not for ever, 
the struggle between Russia and the Teutonic 
Powers for Balkan hegemony is at an end. 
But the immediate decision which the Balkan 
States themselves have to make is between 
the perpetuation of the same evil by assisting 
or opposing French and Italian Imperialism 
and the development of co-operation one with 
another, aiming ultimately perhaps at some 
form of federation which will enable them to 
live, not merely in harmony together, but on 
terms of equality with the Great Powers 
themselves. If territorial questions are settled 
on the principle of nationality and self-deter- 
mination, a Balkan Federation becomes 
possible. The advantages which the Balkan 
nations would derive from its estabhshment 



122 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

are too obvious to need elucidation, while 
the benefits which would accrue to the other 
European Powers from the promulgation of 
a Monroe doctrine for the Peninsula are 
equally undeniable. 

It seems perhaps absurdly optimistic to 
plead the cause of a Balkan Federation while 
the echo of guns is still sounding in our ears, 
but even the despised Balkan peoples cannot 
live by war alone. Since 1914 all of them 
have suffered heavily — some more heavily in 
proportion than any of the Great Powers. 
At the peace the majority obtain new 
territories which will tax all their energies 
to organize and administer. Concord and 
co-operation alone will enable them to restore 
the arts of peace and rebuild the shattered 
fabric of their political, social, and economic 
institutions. The Great Powers, faced by 
similar conditions, have realized the necessity 
of co-operating and have established the 
League of Nations. Is it, then, too much to 
expect from the peoples of the Balkans a 
similar breadth of view, and to look forward 
to a Balkan League ? 

The three Balkan States— Serbia, Rumania 
and Greece— which fought on the side of the 
Allies, are included among the original members 
of the League of Nations. None of them 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 123 

enjoys permanent representation in the Council 
of the League, although, of course, they may 
obtain such representation among the four 
which are to be selected by the Assembly 
from time to time. The question of Bulgaria's 
admission to the League is governed by 
Article i of the Covenant, which stipulates 
a two-thirds majority of the Assembly, effective 
guarantees of a sincere intention to observe 
international obligations, and the acceptance 
of such regulations as may be prescribed by 
the League in regard to military and naval 
forces and armaments. These conditions are 
not insuperable obstacles to Bulgaria's joining 
the League, and there seems good reason to 
believe that she may be admitted at any 
rate not later than Germany and Austria. 

With Bulgaria once a member of the League, 
far-reaching possibilities open out. The imme- 
diate result will be to bring all the Balkan 
States into more intimate relations. The 
sense of joint responsibility and community 
of interests in the efficient working of such 
international control as becomes a permanent 
feature of the Near Eastern settlement, may 
reasonably be expected to point the way to 
a further co-operation under the guidance of 
far-sighted statesmen such as M. Venizelos. 
The logical development of co-operation in 



121 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

a transmigration scheme and in the adminis- 
tration of the internationaHzed regions (Con- 
stantinople and the Straits, and possibly 
Constanza and other ports) must surely be 
some kind of federation on the basis of a 
Customs Union and a defensive alliance. If 
this conception took shape, a new Great 
Power would come into being and '' the 
Balkans for the Balkan peoples" would be 
achieved at last. The case for the permanent 
representation of the Balkan Federation upon 
the Council of the League of Nations would 
be irrefutable. This in itself is likely to be 
an added inducement towards Balkan co- 
operation if the League develops the strength 
and usefulness which is to be desired. 

Internationalism in the Balkans may develop 
along another line either independent^ of 
the League of Nations or side by side with 
it. If the territorial settlement really settles 
the question of Macedonia, a rapprochement 
between Serbia and Bulgaria is not beyond 
the bounds of possibility. As long ago as 
the sixties of the nineteenth century the 
notion of a Jugo-Slav Federation consisting 
of a union of the free and independent Southern 
Slav democracies was the ideal of the young 
Radicals of both nations. The Macedonian 
adventure in which Serbia became entangled 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 125 

after 1878 stifled the conception and threw 
the two nations into antagonism. Now, how- 
ever, since Serbia has absorbed Montenegro 
and the Southern Slav provinces of the 
Habsburg Empire, the reaHzation of this ideal 
has become a practical possibility. The fact 
that Bulgarians are devoted to their national 
Church should not prove an obstacle, for, 
within the newly-established Jugo-Slav State 
itself, the Croats are as fervent adherents of 
Catholicism as the Serbs are of the Patriarchate. 
Moreover, it is not inconceivable that the 
schism between Exarchate and Patriarchate 
may be healed. If, as is possible, some form 
of autonomy is granted to the various pro- 
vinces of the Greater Serbia, the movement 
which has never been completely extinguished 
in favour of a complete Jugo-Slav federation 
will be greatly strengthened both in Bulgaria 
and in Serbia. 

The possibilities which have hitherto been 
discussed may seem too distant ; admittedly 
they cannot come to pass until some years 
of peace have obliterated past dissensions. 
The mere cessation of war will lead to the 
renewal of commercial and social intercourse, 
which is essential for international co-operation 
of a political character. The importance of 
such intercourse from the political point of 



126 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

view is aptly instanced in recent Balkan 
history. In his book entitled La Genese de 
la Guerre Mondiale, M. Gueshoff, the Bulgarian 
statesman, makes the interesting admission 
that it was the visit of the Bulgarian students 
to Athens in the spring of 1911 and the warm 
welcome which they received there that 
created an atmosphere favourable to the 
diplomatic exchanges which resulted in the 
Greco-Bulgarian treaty of alliance. 



CHAPTER IX 

CONCLUSION 

Since the Treaty of Vienna one-half of Euro- 
pean history has been a record of the triumph 
of nationahsm. Belgium, Germany, Italy, and 
Norway realized their national independence 
at comparatively little cost. For the eastern 
fringe of European peoples, from Finland in 
the north to the Balkan Peninsula in the 
south, the struggle was infinitely harder, and 
the issue was still in doubt when Europe 
plunged into war in 1914. 

Decisive as the conclusion of the war has 
been, there are certain indications that among 
the Great Powers future cleavages will tend 
to be horizontal upon class lines rather than 
vertical upon national lines. For the present 
this is not the case in the Balkans. There, 
through long centuries of suppression, the 
idea of nationality has acquired an intensity 
which will ensure its predominance for many 
generations to come. " In its name,'' as Mr. 
Brailsford well says, '' people have done great 

127 



128 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

deeds which Hberty should have inspired, and 
perpetrated oppressions of an iniquity so 
colossal that only an idea could have prompted 
them. The miseries of ten centuries have , 
been its work, and the face of the Balkans < 
to-day, furrowed with hatreds, callous from 
long cruelt}^ dull with perpetual suffering, is 
its image and memorial." ^ i 

No single Balkan nation can be held respon- 1 
sible for the fact that Balkan standards of j 
conduct in war are on the whole inferior to 
those of Europe generally. The breaches of 
international law committed by the belligerents 
of 1912 and 1913 were the subject of im- 
partial enquiry by the Carnegie Commission. 
A calm study of the pages of its Report reveals 
beyond doubt that the outrages committed 
by the Bulgarians were far exceeded both in 
number and in hideousness by those perpe- 
trated by other Balkan armies. But, as the 
Report justly says : " The burning of villages 
and the exodus of the defeated population is 
a normal and traditional incident of all Balkan 
wars and insurrections. It is the habit of 
all these peoples. What they have suffered 
themselves they inflict in turn upon others. 
. . . An estimate of the moral qualities of 
the Balkan peoples under the strain of war 

1 Macedonia : its Races and their Future, p. 107. 



CONCLUSION 129 

must also take account of their courage, 
endurance and devotion. If a heightened 
national sentiment helps to explain these 
excesses, it also inspired the bravery that 
won victory and the steadiness that sustained 
defeat. The moralist who seeks to under- 
stand the brutahty to which these pages bear 
witness must reflect that all the Balkan races 
have grown up amid Turkish models of warfare. 
Folk-songs, history, and oral tradition in the 
Balkans uniformly speak of war as a process 
which includes rape and pillage, devastation 
and massacre.'' I 

The pride of victory and the embitterment 
of defeat which produced these atrocities came 
again into play, now on one side, now on the 
other, during the European War — and with 
the same results. It must be remembered 
that during the war information has been 
*' controlled " more rigorously than any article 
of diet ; the public has been allowed to hear 
only one side of the case. In view, however, 
of the statements of the Carnegie Commission, 
it is incumbent upon every judicially minded 
person to suspend judgment until all the facts 
are known. Then let the instigators of 

» Report of th$ International Commission to Inquire 
into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars (Car- 
negie Endowment for International Peace), pp. 73, 108. 

9 



180 BALKAN PROBLEMS 

atrocities committed by either side be tried, 
and if found guilty condemned. Nothing is 
to be gained by endeavouring to decide whether 
any nation is morally justified in casting the 
first stone at its neighbours. In any case, 
the issue is a subsidiary one. The greatest 
atrocity of war-time is war itself ; and the 
greatest atrocity of peace-time is oppression 
of one nation by another. General and un- 
substantiated charges of barbarism, aimed at 
depriving nations of the right of self-deter- 
mination, are beside the mark. 

The war itself has not diminished the 
intensity of Balkan nationalism, but it has 
at least presented the world with a unique 
opportunity of placing it in correct perspective 
with influences of international significance. 
The necessary formula is contained in the 
following three passages from the pronounce- 
ments of President Wilson :— - 

" The relations of the several Balkan nations 
to one another should be determined by 
friendly counsel along historically established 
lines of allegiance and nationality, and inter- 
national guarantees of the political and 
economic independence and territorial integrity 
of the several Balkan States should be entered 
into." 

*' Every territorial settlement must be made 



CONCLUSION 131 

in the interest and for the benefit of the 
populations concerned, and not as a part of 
any mere adjustment for compromise amongst 
rival States/' 

" All well-defined national aspirations must 
be accorded the utmost satisfaction without 
introducing new or perpetuating old elements 
of discord and antagonism that would be 
likely to break the peace of Europe, and 
consequently of the world/' 

Upon these foundations, and these alone, 
can a lasting settlement in the Balkans be 
constructed. 



INDEX 



Abdul Hamid II, 3i» 58 
Adrianople, 36, 38 
Akerman, 116 
Albania — 

origin of people, 1 5 

independent, 35 

character of people, 54 

frontiers, 115 
Alexander of Battenberg, 24-5 
Alexander, king of Serbia, 26 

Balkan League, 32-6, 67, 70, 

122-6 
Banat, 115 
Basil II, 15 
Bax-Ironside, Sir Henry, 68, 

73-4 
Beaconsfield, 22 
Berchtold, Count, 65 
Berlin, Treaty of, 22-3, 29 
Berliner Tageblati quoted, 75, 

«. 2 
Bessarabia, 23, 24, 33, 115 
Bosnia, 23, 26, 31, 81, 93, 114 
Bourchier, Mr. J. D., 34, 103, 

117 
Brailsford, Mr. H. N., 1 11, 117, 

127-8 
Bukarest, 47, 75 
Bukarest, Treaty of, 37-8, 63, 

66, 84, no 
Bukovina, 115 
Byzantine Empire, 13, 15 

Carnegie Commission, 40, 41, 
128-9 



Charles, king of Rumania, 38 
Churchill, Mr. Winston, 70, 71-2 
Clementine, Princess (wife of 
Ferdinand of Bulgaria), 

50 
Constantino, king of Greece, 65, 

85, 98 
Constantinople, Conference of 

Ambassadors at, 21 
Constantinople, Treaty of, 38, 63 
Constanza, 116 
Croats, see Slavs, Southern 

Dalmatia, 81, 114 
Dardanelles, 11, 60 
Dardanelles expedition, 91, 100, 

103 
Diakovo, 115 
Dibra, 115 

Dobnidja, 23, 28, 37, 80, 93, 116 
Drama, 37, 64 
Dulcigno, 115 
Durazzo, 35 

Eastern Rumelia, 22, 24 
Enos-Midia line, 36, 92, 104, 118 
Enver, 31 

Evans, Sir Arthur, 117 
Exarchate (Bulgarian national 
church), 21, 27, 125 

Ferdinand, king of Bulgaria, 

25. 37. 65. 94. 112 
Fetih Bey, 75 
Fitchefif, General, 76 
Fiume, 115 



1S3 



134 



BALKAN PROBLEMS 



Garvin, Mr. J. L., loi 

George, Mr. Lloyd, 70, xoi 

Germany, 22, 29, 30, 31, 57-8 

Ghegs, 54 

Giolitti, Signor, 58 

Gladstone, 21, 24, 50 

Goeben and Breslau, 60 

Greece Before the Conference 

quoted, 41 
Grey, Sir Edward, 31, 59, 61, 

68, 70, 74, 77, 90 w., 96 
GueshofiE, M., 33, 111, 126 

Herv^, M. Gustave, 102 
Herzegovina, 23, 26, 81, 93, 

114 
Hilmi Pasha, 30 



Ipek, 115 
Ishtib, 41, 83 
Italy, 19, 24, 

no 
Ivan Asen II, 15 



58, 86, 91, 



John Zimisces, 13 

Jugo-Slavs, see Slavs, Sonthem 

Karageorgevich d5masty, 26 

Kastoria, 33 

Kavalla, 33, 37-8, 64, 70, 80, 

82, 85, 90 K., 93, 105, 

117-18 
Kochana, 41, 83 
Kossovo, 16 
Koumanovo, 33 

Lansdowne, Lord, 30, 32 
Law, Mr. Bonar, quoted, 102 
League of Nations, 113, 120-6 
London, Conference of, 35-6 

Macedonia, 22, 27-30, 35-6, 37, 
39-41, 63. 78-9, 81, 92, 
112-13, 116-17 

Magyars, 14, 23 



Malinoff, M., 33 

Masterman, Mr. C. F. G., 70 

Michael Paleologus, 16 

Miliukofif, M., loi, 102, 105 

Milovanovich, Dr., quoted, 27 

Mohammed II, 16 

Moldavia, 14, 20 

Monastir, 85, 92 

Montenegro — 

independent, 22 

joins Balkan League, 35 

absorbed by Serbia, 114 

Navarino, 20 

O'Beirne, Mr., 74, 95 
Ochrida, 27, 34, 41, 92 

Passich. M., 82 

" Polybius " quoted, 41 

Radoslavoff, M., 64, 63, 86, 94 

Reichstadt, 23 

Reval, 31 

Robert College, 52 

Roum-mileti, 20 

Salisbury, Lord, 24 

Salonika. 30, 35, 85, 93, 103. 

Ill, 117-18 
San Stefano, Treaty of, 22 
Savofif, General, 37 
SazonofiF, M., 74, 76 
Scanderbeg, 13 
Serres, 33. 37. ^4 
Simeon (Bulgarian " emperor "), 

15 

Slavs, 15 

Slavs, Southern, 23, 26. 33, 112, 

123 
Slivnitza, 25 

Slovenes, see Slavs, Southern 
Smyrna, 82, 86, 89, 115 
Stamboloff, 25 
Stephen Dushan, 16 



INDEX 



185 



Talaat, 31 

Tchatalja, 35 

Thrace, 15, 21, 38, 63, 92, 118 

Tosks, 54 

Transylvania, 14, 33, 115 

Treaties — 

Berlin, 22-3, 29 

Bukarest, 37-8, 63. 66, 84, 1 10 

Constantinople, 38, 63 

Greco-Bulgarian, 34-5 

London, 36 

San Stefano, 23 

Serbo-Bulgarian, 33 

Serbo-Greek, 36 
Trnovo, 16 

United States of America, 109, 

118 
Uskub, 16, 27, 33, 34. 41 

V«lbu«hd, 16 



Venizelos, M., 37, 46, 86, 89-90, 

98-9, 112, 119, 123 
Vienna, siege of, 17 
Vlachs, 28 
Vodena, 33 
Volkerwanderung. 12 

Wallachia, 14, 20 
Wars — 

First Balkan, 35 

Second Balkan, 37 

Serbo-Bulgarian, 25 

Turko-Greek, 46 

Turko- Italian, 33 

Turko- Russian, 22 
White, Sir WilUam, 25 
Wilson, President, 117, 130-1 

Young Turks, 31-2, 58, 75 

Zographos, M., 90 w. 



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§j^ N. MANCHESTER, 
6^ INDIANA 46962 



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